Freedom is one of the purposes of law, which has long been recognized by jurists. Cicero in ancient Rome has a famous saying: For freedom, we are servants of the law. Locke pointed out that the law aims at freedom and aims to protect and expand freedom. Robespierre and Locke made a consistent exposition, which comprehensively revealed the significance of law to freedom.

Regarding the making of laws, he said that the purpose of making laws is to ensure that everyone can freely exert his talents, not to restrict his talents. The power of law is limited to prohibiting everyone from harming the rights of others, not prohibiting him from exercising his own rights. In all free countries, the law should especially protect social freedom and individual freedom and prevent those in power from abusing their power. Regarding the content of the law, he said that the primary task of any constitution should be to protect the freedom of society and individuals from the government itself. The division rule of judicial power is stipulated for freedom, which is subject to the necessity of ensuring the means to safeguard freedom. The purpose of military law is to defeat external enemies more reliably and protect the freedom of the country from internal enemies. He concluded that, in a word, we make laws not for temporary needs, but for a century-long plan; Not for us, but for the world; We should show that we deserve to lay the foundation of freedom, and we should always follow this great principle, that is, if freedom is limited to the actions of those authorized by the people, it cannot exist.

The purpose of law is freedom, specifically: first, the establishment of legal norms is to confirm and guarantee freedom. Legal norms include authorized norms, prohibitive norms and mandatory norms. Legal authorization itself is the confirmation of freedom, and legal prohibitions and obligations are also established to ensure freedom. The law prohibits people from infringing on the freedom of others. In order to ensure the realization of people's legal freedom, people are often required to do something or not to do something for the realization of others or social freedom through legislation. Without free legal authorization, legal prohibition and legal order, law itself loses its soul. Second, legal rights and legal obligations are set for the realization of freedom. From the perspective of legal rights and legal obligations, legal rights are set for freedom, and legal obligations are also set for freedom. If the establishment of legal rights conflicts with freedom, it will inevitably violate the original intention of the law; If the setting of legal obligations conflicts with freedom, legal rights will become nothingness, and freedom will have no legal basis and guarantee. Legal rights and legal obligations provide concrete legal channels for the realization of freedom. Third, the formulation and implementation of laws should take freedom as the starting point and destination, and freedom as the core; The implementation of the law must be based on freedom, and the protection, crackdown, reward or punishment of the law must be based on freedom.

Second, freedom needs legal protection.

First of all, legal protection of freedom is the need to ensure that freedom is not violated. In society, people exist as individuals and groups of individuals. Individuals, groups and groups all have their own independent interests and independent will. They seek their own needs or interests and their own freedom. It is inevitable that there will be conflicts and even mutual violations between the needs, interests and freedoms of all subjects. In order to ensure that freedom is not violated, we must severely punish those who violate freedom and their violations. The most severe external means for human beings to punish evil is law, which is a powerful measure to punish those who violate freedom. The law protects freedom from infringement by punishing crimes that violate freedom.

Secondly, protecting freedom by law is the need to ensure that freedom is not abused. Freedom may be violated and abused. The abuse of freedom is due to the freedom holders arbitrarily expanding the scope and content of their freedom, which will also lead to the damage or deprivation of other individuals or groups' freedom. The violation of freedom mentioned above is viewed from the external force of the free subject; The abuse of freedom mentioned here is viewed from the internal initiative of the free subject. The two are essentially two sides of the same question. The violation of purpose may be formed by the abuse of freedom, and the abuse of freedom will inevitably lead to the violation of freedom. The law must prevent freedom from being abused while preventing freedom from being violated. Fully guarantee the existence, realization and development of freedom to a higher level.

Third, the legal protection of freedom is the mission of the Constitution and the important pursuit of other laws and regulations. As the fundamental law of the country, the Constitution must shoulder the heavy responsibility of affirming and guaranteeing freedom. Safeguarding freedom is also an important pursuit of other laws and regulations. Other laws and regulations should also strive to protect freedom. Freedom is only stipulated by constitutional principles, and it is difficult to translate it into the objective reality of society. It also needs the full protection of the whole social legal system. Protecting freedom is not only the task of criminal law, but also administrative law, civil law, marriage law, procedural law and labor law should provide protection for freedom from their specific legal aspects, so that freedom can gain its due social significance under the protection of law.

The important mechanism of legal protection of freedom is to turn freedom into a right, to make it a "right to engage in all activities that are harmless to others" ... It is of great significance to turn freedom into a legal right (freedom). Because if the will is only the will of the subject, whether it can overcome artificial obstacles or constraints depends entirely on the comparison between the strength of the subject and external obstacles or resistance, and usually external obstacles or resistance are always in an advantage. However, when the free will of the subject is recognized by the official representative of society-the state, it has legitimacy, which is manifested as "universal rights". The will expressed in the form of free rights is no longer just the will of the subject, but also the will of the state. Therefore, any infringement on it is also an infringement on the authority of the state and will be countered by the coercive power of the state. When the law recognizes freedom as a right, it also determines the scope of various freedom rights, making it possible to coordinate with each other under the general principle of freedom. If the right to freedom means doing whatever you want, then freedom will cease to exist, because it will be a mutual denial of freedom. Therefore, all kinds of freedom rights should have a clear margin. Within the range indicated by this margin or in the space of private activities, the subject of rights can do whatever he wants, and the interference of others is illegal. However, if he goes beyond this range, his freedom loses the nature of rights, and his behavior is illegal, because at this time he will inevitably cause damage to the legitimate interests of others.

Three. The scope of freedom is determined by law.

Although freedom is a social value, it is not infinite. Freedom to do anything is bound to be useless, even harmful, because everyone always conflicts with the freedom of others when exercising this freedom. Therefore, if freedom is not restricted, there will be a state in which everyone can interfere with others without restriction. Based on this understanding, Locke pointed out that freedom is not the kind of freedom that everyone can do whatever he wants, but the freedom to do whatever he wants within the legal scope he is bound by.

Freedom is freedom within the scope permitted by law, not anyone's willfulness. In modern society, as a right of freedom, its scope is determined by law and takes legal norms as the criterion. "Freedom is the right to engage in all activities that are harmless to others. The boundaries of activities that everyone can carry out without hurting others are stipulated by law, just as boundaries are determined by landmarks. "

The scope of freedom determined by law is based on the premise that freedom needs to be expressed by law. Why should freedom be determined by law in the form of law? Marx pointed out: "Because only when the free unconscious natural law becomes conscious national law, the law plays the role of positive law. Where the law becomes a real law, that is, where freedom is realized, where the law truly realizes human freedom. " This means that people's freedom rights are not interfered and restricted by any privilege or power except those prescribed by law.

The ways to determine the scope of freedom by law include:

Determine basic freedoms

People's freedom is extensive. The law always determines people's most basic freedom by law, and gives people general freedom in a way that is not prohibited by law. Throughout the world, the constitutions and laws of all countries stipulate the basic freedoms of citizens in their own constitutional legal documents and declare them inviolable. The laws of various departments always take the similar provisions of constitutional legal documents as their legislative basis, thus specifying the protection of various freedoms in the same or different ways. When all kinds of freedoms are violated, the law will give corresponding legal sanctions to the illegal and criminal acts that violate freedom and give compulsory protection to freedom.

Determine the scale of freedom

Freedom is not infinite, especially universal freedom, which one citizen should enjoy and so should other citizens. * * * It is common and frequent for people to enjoy the same freedom. Free resources are not all unlimited, so people may have contradictions and conflicts in the distribution and utilization of free resources. Therefore, the law not only confirms people's basic freedoms, but also measures some basic freedoms, so that all actors can own and realize their own freedoms without infringing others' freedoms. The measurement of human freedom by law is conducive to people's legitimate enjoyment of their own freedom and will not pose a threat or infringement on the freedom of others.

(3) The law determines the margin of freedom.

It is an indisputable fact that there will be some intersection and even conflict between freedom and freedom. The freedoms stipulated by law will overlap or even conflict, and people will inevitably have contradictions when enjoying these freedoms. In order to avoid conflicts or contradictions, the law makes marginal provisions on certain freedoms in advance, so that all kinds of freedoms can be exercised or play a role within their respective scope without conflicts or contradictions. The determination of the margin of freedom by law is helpful for people to accurately grasp and enjoy freedom. Once a legal dispute arises from this, it is also convenient to solve it according to law.

Fourth, realize the freedom guaranteed by law.

There are many reasons why freedom cannot be realized, and there are also many ways to guarantee freedom by law.

(A) to provide legal norms to solve the tension and conflict between freedom and other values

Freedom is not the only value of society. Other social values include order, security, equality and justice. They constitute a social value system, and many values themselves are the direct goals pursued by law. There is inevitably tension or conflict between freedom and other values. To this end, the law balances the relationship between these values to solve their conflicts. The law sets different legal status for different value standards, even different ways and processes of realization, so that all kinds of value standards are in their proper places. In this way, some value conflicts can be reduced in a certain sense, so that the free value among many values can coexist with other values, and an institutional model can be set in advance for conflict resolution, providing legal norms for conflict resolution.

(2) The law solves the conflict between freedoms and ensures the realization of freedom.

This kind of freedom and that kind of freedom in freedom may also be difficult to achieve because of mutual conflict. For example, citizens' freedom of demonstration will conflict with citizens' freedom of normal life. Demonstrations are bound to occupy certain public places, which are occupied by demonstrations and cannot be used by other citizens for leisure and entertainment. If you use traffic roads to demonstrate, it will also affect the freedom of other citizens to use public transportation. Therefore, the law should regulate the freedom of procession and demonstration so as to coordinate it with the freedom of citizens' normal life. Freedom and freedom may be difficult to achieve because of mutual conflict, and law provides a solution mechanism for solving the conflict between freedoms.

(3) The law provides legal ways and means for the enjoyment of freedom.

For example, the Law on Demonstrations not only stipulates citizens' freedom of demonstration, but also specifies the specific ways and means of demonstration, including how to apply and how to conduct it. Another example is freedom of association. The law stipulates the establishment, activities, purposes and scope of various associations, especially their bidding, approval, supervision and management procedures. Where the law does not stipulate the freedom of ways and means, as long as it does not violate the prohibitive provisions of the law. Where the law stipulates the freedom of ways and means of realization, its exercise must be carried out in accordance with the ways and means prescribed by law.

The law protects the existence and realization of freedom by preventing abuse.

The abuse of freedom exists objectively. Once freedom is abused by one or some subjects, the freedom of other subjects will be hurt. Any freedom is based on the premise that it is harmless to others and other freedoms. It requires individuals to be responsible to others and society when exercising their freedom. France's Declaration of Human Rights and Civil Rights stipulates that freedom refers to the right to do all acts that are "harmless to others", and the exercise of everyone's right to freedom is only limited by "ensuring that other members of society can enjoy the same rights". China's Constitution stipulates that when citizens exercise their freedoms and rights, "they shall not harm the interests of the state, society and the collective or the legitimate freedoms and rights of other citizens". Free subjects should and must bear legal responsibility for their own illegal acts that hinder the freedom of others out of free will and free choice. This responsibility denies the freedom to destroy freedom, which is absolutely necessary to protect everyone's equality and freedom. Because "without responsibility, freedom will become anarchy and human rights will become infinite willfulness." The law links responsibility with freedom to prevent the abuse of freedom.

(5) The law protects freedom by preventing the destruction and obstruction of freedom.

The greatest power to destroy and hinder freedom is the power of improper operation. Law must first restrain power, especially the law under the rule of law. It is an extremely important mission of law to restrain power and prevent abuse of power, including preventing the destruction and obstruction of freedom by upper-level power. One of the most common reasons for destroying and hindering freedom is that other members of society hinder or destroy the freedom of other members of society, and the law has set a series of specific systems and norms for this. An important manifestation of legal protection of freedom is to impose legal sanctions on all kinds of illegal and criminal acts that undermine and hinder freedom.

The above discussion is for reference only and I hope it will help you.