right to

a/the right to (do) (something)

An established moral or legal permission, privilege, or due claim. You have the right to say whatever you want, but you don't have the right to have people respect or listen to what you say. I have a right to this land! It's been owned by my family for generations.
See also: right

right to (something)

The just or legal permission, privilege, or authority to have or own something. Everyone has a right to food, shelter, and water, but unfortunately, not everyone in this country gets them. I have the right to my own opinions, so don't try to tell me how to think!
See also: right
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

*(a) right to something

 and *(the) right to something
a privilege or license to have something. (*Typically: get ~; have ~; give someone ~.) I have the right to have the kind of house I want. You have a right to any house you can afford.
See also: right
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs.
See also:
  • a/the right to (do) (something)
  • right to do
  • alright
  • right of way
  • right-of-way
  • (the) right of way
  • right out
  • up in (one's) grill
  • up in someone’s gold ones
  • up in (one's) gold ones
References in classic literature
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.
Many a one, also, waxeth too old for his truths and triumphs; a toothless mouth hath no longer the right to every truth.
"One might dispute your right to ask such questions," observed Lebedeff's nephew.
"Prince," he cried, "you are forgetting that if you consented to receive and hear them, it was only because of your kind heart which has no equal, for they had not the least right to demand it, especially as you had placed the matter in the hands of Gavrila Ardalionovitch, which was also extremely kind of you.
But we will tell you to your face before the present company that you are a man of vulgar and undeveloped mind; we will openly deny you the right to speak in future of your honour and conscience, for you have not paid the fair price of such a right.
"You have no sort of right to suppose such things," said Lebedeff's nephew in a tone of authority.
"I admit you are right there, but it was involuntary, and I immediately said to myself that my personal feelings had nothing to do with it,-- that if I thought it right to satisfy the demands of Mr.
Burdovsky, because I know from experience what it is to be like that, and so I have a right to speak.
To confine anything, seems to me against the law of nature, by which everything hath a right to liberty.
Just before I came into your kingdom, I saw you dancing from left to right, and then from right to left, with Seven Men and a Woman in your immediate proximity on the left, and eight Men and two Women on your right.
"Not so," replied I; "besides your motion of Northward and Southward, there is another motion which I call from right to left."
We have already said, that all the members of the community will dispute with each other for the offices of the state; and in some particulars justly, but not so in general; the rich, for instance, because they have the greatest landed property, and the ultimate right to the soil is vested in the community; and also because their fidelity is in general most to be depended on.
All these things seem to make it plain, that none of these principles are justly founded on which these persons would establish their right to the supreme power; and that all men whatsoever ought to obey them: for with respect to those who claim it as due to their virtue or their fortune, they might have justly some objection to make; for nothing hinders but that it may sometimes happen, that the many may be better or richer than the few, not as individuals, but in their collective capacity.
for it seems not right to turn out and banish such a one; neither does it seem right to govern him, for that would be like desiring to share the power with Jupiter and to govern him: nothing then remains but what indeed seems natural, and that is for all persons quietly to submit to the government of those who are thus eminently virtuous, and let them be perpetually kings in the separate states.
right to unhindered access to communication with human rights bodies