The restriction requires a valid general legal basis.
Arts. 67–69 · proportionality is not a blank cheque
Limits on rights and non-derogable safeguards
Fundamental rights do not all operate in the same way. Some permit general limitations to protect other rights and constitutional interests; others contain absolute prohibitions or non-derogable cores that cannot be suspended even by emergency, treaty, contract or technical necessity.
Proposed Constitution · reference text · not promulgatedIn brief
A right is not an abstract promise: it constrains concrete decisions.
Art. 67 requires a general law, a legitimate constitutional aim, suitability, necessity, proportionality and use of the least restrictive means reasonably available. The State bears the burden of demonstrating the legitimacy of a restriction when it is challenged. Art. 69 preserves a non-derogable core even in extreme circumstances.
The four-question test
Administrative or reputational convenience, by itself, does not justify limiting a right.
A less restrictive alternative that provides sufficient protection must be preferred.
The burden imposed on the right cannot exceed the demonstrated constitutional benefit.
What cannot be relativised
Non-derogable safeguards include dignity, continuous recognition of legal personality, life against arbitrary deprivation, prohibitions on civil death, torture, slavery, enforced disappearance, secret detention and imprisonment for civil debt, criminal legality, the internal forum of conscience and religion, and the minimum defence and judicial-control guarantees necessary to protect that core.
Systemic private power may also require protection
Art. 68 permits proportionate duties to be extended to dominant private platforms or infrastructures where their material power over access, communication, identity, property or participation makes effective protection of rights necessary, without turning those entities into organs of the State.
What this means for you
Practical consequences
When a restriction affects you, it is legitimate to ask which law authorises it, which aim it protects and why no less restrictive alternative exists.
An emergency does not automatically suspend rights and can never legitimise the absolute prohibitions listed by the Constitution.
Contracts and private architecture cannot be used to neutralise minimum protection of non-disposable rights where there is a legal basis for applying that protection.
Limits and institutional honesty
What this safeguard does not authorise
Proportionality does not mean that every right can be bargained away; absolute prohibitions remain outside that calculation.
The effect of rights against private power depends on the applicable competence and constitutional or legal rules; it does not create universal jurisdiction.
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