POLITICAL SCIENCE Chapter Notes - Chapter EQUALITY: Equal Protection Clause

• School: University of Calicut
• Department: Humanities
• Course: POLITICAL SCIENCE

Document Summary

Equality, like liberty, is an important pillar of democracy. In common parlance the term equality is used for identity of treatment and identity of rewards. However, this is not a correct use of the term because absolute equality is not possible. Like liberty, equality has also been assigned both negative and positive meaning. In the negative sense, equality means the absence of special privileges. It implies the absence of barriers like birth, wealth, caste, color, creed, etc. In the positive sense, equality means provision of adequate opportunities for all the members of the society. Dimensions of equality the concept of equality is dynamic one and has kept on changing according to times. Accordingly different scholars have suggested different dimensions or kinds of equality. Laski mentions only two kinds of equality - political and economic. Lord bryce refers to four kinds of equality - civil, political, social and natural: civil equality. Civil equality implies equality of all before law.