The human rights approach to social assistance: Normative principles and system characteristics

This article deals with the substantive meaning of the human right of social assistance. The central question is how normative human rights principles can be reconciled with system characteristics which are part of the practical reality of social assistance law and administration. In order to answer this question, we present illustrations of how the human right of social assistance has been operationalised, with a particular emphasis on the judgments and opinions of courts and quasi-judicial institutions. What emerges is that the meaning of the human right of social assistance is not fixed or to be found in some natural law abstraction. It is organically created in the process of confronting human rights principles with the system characteristics of social assistance. Drivers of this process are, inter alia, the principles of a universal material minimum subsistence level, a dignified life for social assistance recipients, and a rights-based approach.