Preliminary slight knowledge of a legal theory of the freedoms

Abstract

This article presents preliminary considerations on liberty rights, arguing initially that the concept of freedom in the legal sense is distinct from the concept of freedom in the actual sense. The central idea is that freedom in the legal sense consists of a normative authorization to act, while freedom in the actual sense is characterized as an effective capacity to act. The distinction is considered important to understand that not always a law based freedom coincides with a de facto freedom. Therefore, the article intends to distinguish the situations where the judicial power is entitled to enforce the respect for a freedom assured by law from those situations where the intervention of the legislative power only may correct the lack of correspondence between rights and reality.