11. 'Liberties'.

Before the incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights1 United Kingdom citizens enjoyed 'liberties', not rights: a person did no wrong to exercise them, but there was no positive formal duty imposed on any organ of the state to allow or facilitate them2. Common law constitutional principle could be relied upon to resist encroachment on a liberty, but its lack of formal expression meant that the protection thereby accorded to liberties tended to be inconsistent and precarious