Political liberty implies the power of the people to determine as to how they are to be governed. Laski puts it thus: “Political liberty means the power to be active in the affairs of State”. It means that each individual has the opportunity to contribute his opinion and his experience to the sum-total, of public opinion and experience which go to determine the decisions and policy of the government and the laws of the State. Leacock calls it “constitutional liberty” and defines it as the power of the people to choose their government which is responsible to them. Gettell regards political liberty in modern times as synonymous with democracy or popular government, because in such a government the people themselves determine how they shall be governed.
Democracy, as Gilchrist says, is based on the principle that each citizen is able to express his opinion on the affairs of government which concern him or his country. So political liberty implies both the freedom to express one’s opinion in the affairs of the State as well as a share in its authority. In other words, political liberty aims at placing both liberty and sovereignty in the same hands. It consists in such rights as the rights to vote, the right to be elected, the right to hold a public office, if adequately qualified for it, the right to criticise the government, the right to be informed of the affairs of the State, etc.
Its relation with other liberties
The struggle for political liberty has a long history behind it. At first, the people struggled for the recognition of their civil liberty or civil rights. But once civil rights were acquired by them, they found that they could not enjoy and secure them properly without participating in the political affairs and exercising political power. The reason is, as Laski points out, that those who are excluded from a share in political power tend to be excluded from its benefits as well.
This led to a demand for political rights. The growth of political liberty shows that it exists only in democratically governed countries, and that it is closely’ linked with civil liberty. Political liberty is a necessary complement to civil liberty. Without political liberty, civil liberty is incomplete, and may even become meaningless and illusory. But political liberty cannot be preserved, as Laski says, without two essential conditions: viz., universal education and free press. The doors of education should be open to the children of all citizens, regardless of their income, wealth, social status, sex, religion, and other distinctions. Moreover, an educational system must not be based on different schools and education for the children of the rich and the poor.
Such discrimination produces the same kind of society that existed in the Middle Ages with its division into two classes of nobles and serfs, or in the ancient times with its division into free citizens and slaves. The children of the rich will be trained in the habits of government and political monopoly, while those of the poor in the habits of subservience and passive obedience. In short, such an educational system will not produce a free people. The second condition of political liberty is the provision of an honest, truthful and adequate supply of news and general information.
It means a free press. If democracy means a government guided by public opinion, the opinion of the people must be enlightened opinion, based on truthful information and reliable news. The press disseminates information and knowledge which is honest, straightforward and unbiased. But this is often not so. It sometimes skilfully omits relevant facts and deliberately distorts other. If so, public opinion will be unrelated to truth and will be corrupted at its very source, “for to exercise one’s judgement in a miasma of distortion is, ultimately, to go disastrously astray.”