UPSC Prelims 2018 · Question 40 of 99
UPSC Prelims 2018 question on Law and Liberty
Which one of the following reflects the most appropriate relationship between law and liberty?
Show answer
Answer: B. If there are no laws, there is no liberty.
Analysis
Option (b) states the relationship most appropriately, so the answer is (b).
Liberty means the absence of restraints on individual activity together with the provision of opportunities for individual development. But liberty is not licence to do as one likes, and must be enjoyed within the limitations set by the Constitution and by law. The concept is not absolute, and the absence of laws does not secure liberty, since without law the stronger simply constrain the weaker.
Option (a) is the closest distractor and states the naive inverse relation, that more laws always mean less liberty. It would have been right only if every law were a restriction on freedom, whereas laws also create and protect freedom. Options (c) and (d) describe features of democratic law making and legal certainty, both reasonable in themselves but not the core relationship asked about.
Source
Indian Polity by M. Laxmikanth, chapter on the Preamble; NCERT Class 11, Indian Constitution at Work, Chapter 2.
How to crack it
Conceptual Polity questions are settled by asking which option states a necessary relation rather than a plausible tendency. Options (a) and (d) are tendencies that hold sometimes; option (b) states a condition without which liberty cannot exist at all. Prefer the option that is structurally true over the one that merely sounds worldly.