Private citizen

A private citizen is someone who does not have an official or professional role in a given situation.[1]

The same person may be a private citizen in one role, and an official in another. For example, a legislator is an official when voting in the legislature, but a private citizen when paying taxes or when undertaking a citizen's arrest in a public place.

A person may remain a private citizen even when having considerable political power and influence:

...Pericles, in his capacity as a private citizen, was able to dominate the affairs of the Athenian assembly, and to direct and guide the demos for nearly a generation.[2]

In law

Private citizens in qui tam actions bring suit on behalf of the state but are not officers of the court, and are possibly eligible for a reward.[3]

Private citizens may have the right to make citizen's arrests under certain circumstances, despite not being sworn law-enforcement officials.

Private citizens may have the right to bring citizen suits to enforce a statute.

A government employee may be considered to be a private citizen in the context of law enforcement actions. For example, an emergency medical technician who discovered contraband on a patient was ruled not to be a "government agent" for the purposes of the constitutional restrictions on government searches.[4][5]

See also

Notes
  1. Oxford English Dictionary, 3rd edition, 2014, s.v., definition 5
  2. Graham Maddox, "Democratic theory and the face to face society", Politics 9:1:56-62 (1974) as quoted in Sparkes, A. W. (1988). "Idiots, ancient and modern". Australian Journal of Political Science. 23 (1): 101–102. doi:10.1080/00323268808402051.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  3. Gerald N. Hill, Kathleen Hill, Nolo's Plain English Law Dictionary, 2009, ISBN 1413310370, s.v. "qui tam action", p. 350
  4. Ken Wallentine, Street Legal: A Guide to Pre-trial Criminal Procedure for Police, Prosecutors, and Defenders, 2007, ISBN 1590318226, p. 145
  5. Walter v. United States
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.