The Habeas Mentem Principle. Reframing Neurorights in the Digital Age

Abstract This article adopts a liberal perspective on political legitimacy grounded in the protection of freedom and examines the use of digital technologies as instruments of surveillance, censorship, and manipulation. By taking the cases of Egypt (2011) and Iran (2025) as illustrative entry points, the article highlights repressive strategies in the digital age and shows how political power may operate upon individuals’ psychological processes. The political dynamics associated with cognitive control and repression reveal the limits of the neurorights paradigm. While necessary to safeguard cognitive liberty and mental privacy, neurorights remain defensive individual rights unable to counter the structural asymmetries generated by states and digital platforms. The paper therefore proposes Habeas Mentem, which incorporates and at the same time transcends neurorights by embedding them within a normative, constitutional, and systemic principle, as well as within a broader framework for balancing cognitive power. This framework requires the separation of digital power, antitrust measures, informational pluralism, and critical education, since mental freedom cannot be secured merely by prohibiting intrusions into the mind, but also by constructing the social and institutional conditions that prevent the emergence of mental domination.