Feature: What are my rights and responsibilities as a citizen?

It is the people that help the very essence of sovereignty reside and flow in the country. They have the power as a collective individual force to choose their government. And it is not only the government that acts as a show of their self-determination but also the power that they have to choose their electoral and political system.  And the choice of systems that is exercised by the people’s government is in fact the will of the citizens of any nation. The citizens of every nation have the right to take to part in the country’s election process and also the right to determine who will hold the position in the government through genuine and legitimate elections.

These are precepts that is a part of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and is also embodied by the modern democratic constitutions all across the globe. This embodiment of thought by the global body of citizen human rights and responsibilities is in fact an essence captures from the foundation of democracy, that is, “of the people, by the people and for the people”. This democratic ideology generally means that the government is for the people and belongs to the citizens, the government processes belong to its citizens and the election of the country belongs to its citizens.

This essence of democracy is as simple as it seems and yet complicated in the same way. It is pivotal that citizen engagement in government thrives for democracy to thrive. And when we say citizen engagement, it means involving citizens with their rights and responsibilities to develop and sustain the democratic ideology.

For every citizen, right is what relates to his or her freedom of doing something without being interfered by other individual, society or the government. When we talk about individual rights, it means as a free individual ones right to live way they want or pursue goals they want without being interfered by the society, other individuals or government. Like in many independent democratic countries the individual rights include right to live, right to pursuit of happiness and right to liberty.