Individual Rights are Trumps

Individual rights are political trumps held by individuals. Individuals have rights when, for some reason, a collective goal is not a sufficient justification for denying them what they wish, as individuals, to have or to do, or not a sufficient justification for imposing some loss or injury upon them. This characterization of a right is, of course, formal in the sense that it does not indicate what rights people have or guarantee, indeed, that they have any.  But it does not suppose that rights have some special metaphysical character…

Ronald Dworkin, Taking Rights Seriously