Sociala rättigheter i förändring : En konstitutionellrättslig studie

Sammanfattning: This dissertation examines the status and role of fundamental social rights in a Swedish context. The point of departure is Chapter 1, Article 2, para. 2 in the Swedish Instrument of Government, where important social rights are articulated as fundamental goals for society: the right to social assistance, the right to shelter and the right to health. As these rights are”goals”, the state and its authorities shall strive to achieve them. They are not formulated as individual rights in the constitution and are not invocable before the courts. In order to analyse the constitutional choice to keep these rights outside the Swedish “Bill of Rights” in Chapter 2 of the Instrument of Government, the constitutions of Canada, Finland and South Africa are studied.The Swedish constitutional context is highly dependant on international obligations in international conventions and the fact that Sweden is a member of the European Union. Changes and trends concerning access to and content of social rights in public international law are traced via the United Nation’s two conventions for human rights, as well as through the conventions of the Council of Europe. The conclusion is that social rights today are being defined in a clearer way than before. Individuals and groups also have wider possibilities to make complaints concerning violations of these rights. A very important factor for this is the evolving view of non discrimination in public international law.Non discrimination is also the point of departure for the strengthening of access to social rights in the European Union. Through the four freedoms of European Community law, the individual has been given individual rights. Today this picture is widened thanks to the citizenship of the European Union and to the EU Charter on Fundamental Rights. We can therefore start considering social human rights in the EU.The conclusion is that the Swedish constitution does not handle the constraints that public international law and the membership in the EU mean for the national welfare state, nor is it equipped to handle that the factual status of social rights as constitutional rights.