The Binomial of Individual Rights and Duties in the Constitutional Drafts of Simón Bolívar

Introduction: The article is devoted to the contribution of Simón Bolívar, the leader of the fighting for liberation of the peoples of Latin America from colonial dependence, to the development of the constitutional institution of human rights and duties, as well as to their concepts. Methodology and materials: The author analyses the constitutional drafts of Bolívar, other documents, reflected his political and legal ideas. These drafts are compared with adopted Constitutions of Venezuela in 1819 and Bolivia in 1826, and their ideological and legal sources. Russian and foreign publications devoted to Bolívar’s constitutional doctrine and other aspects of the subject matter are examined. Preparing the article, formal-dogmatic, comparative-legal, systemic-structural and historical research methods were used. Research results: This paper deals with two milestones in Bolívar’s legislative formulation of individual rights and duties, represented by the relevant institution in his drafts of constitutions of Venezuela of 1819 and of Bolivia of 1826. These acts reflected the evolution of Bolívar’s political and legal ideas, determined by military-political situations and dominant constitutional doctrines and models. Conclusions: Bolívar’s systematic and conceptually sophisticated approach to understanding rights and duties as a basis of constitutional status of any individual predetermined by their interrelationship, is noticed, as well as the mutual dependence of the individual (citizen) and society (social body), presented in the classification of citizen’s duties. Special attention is done to the significance of human rights in 1819 and of duties of Bolivians in 1826 in the binomial “rights — duties”. The role of provisions on human rights and citizen’s duties in shaping the principles of the constitutional order established in 1819 and the concept of the state and of its functions in 1826 is revealed.

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