Aharon Barak’s Concept of Human Dignity and the Notion of Dignity in Jurisprudence of Polish Constitutional Court

Israeli scholar and judge, Aharon Barak rejects the position that dignity is an axiomatic, universal concept. Moreover, he is in favor of “spacious” understanding of the right to dignity, making it a vast and broad category. The aim of the paper is to examine whether the concept of dignity presented by Barak is useful to understand the approach to human dignity as a legal concept in those Central European legal systems which have been influenced by German constitutional theory. In that regard the jurisprudence of Polish Constitutional Court is examined. The author is not fully convinced by Barak’s approach to dignity. The conclusion is drawn, however, that Barak is right when claiming that the status of an absolute right granted to the right to dignity means also that its scope is defined in a restrictive way.

GOING GENTLY INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT: THE CONSTITUTIONALITY OF CONSENT IN CASES OF EUTHANASIA

Although consent is a justification ground in South African law, its applicability to cases of euthanasia has been the subject of controversy. It is submitted that relying on the distinction between omission and commission, or causation or intent will not prove useful in justifying mercy killing. In terms of the South African Constitution (and various human rights guaranteed therein), there may be compelling arguments for legalizing euthanasia. For instance, section 10 of the Constitution guarantees the right to dignity. A lack of control over your destiny essentially involves a loss of dignity. Further, the right to dignity and the qualified right to personal autonomy inform section 14: the right to privacy. This right holds that an individual can make certain fundamental private choices without state interference. Surely this would extend to how to end one’s life? This article advocates that a rights-based approach be used to inform the doctrine of consent. This would entail taking the victim’s shared responsibility into account thereby reducing the perpetrator’s fault.

THE PURPOSE AND AMBIT OF THE OFFENCE OF CONCEALMENT OF BIRTH S v Molefe 2012 (2) SACR 574 (GNP)

The statutory offence of concealment of birth inevitably attracts controversy. It has been argued in the 2008 Canadian case of R v Levkovic (2008 CarswellOnt 5744, 235 CCC (3d) 417, 178 CRR (2d) 285, 79 WCD (2d) 493, heard in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice) that it is clear from the history of this offence that its purpose was to stigmatize socially and punish criminally women who bore illegitimate or “bastard” children – “an objective entirely offensive in modern society to liberty and security of the person”. Moreover, in the Memorandum on the Objects of the Judicial Matters Amendment Bill 2008 (B48-2008), the precursor of the South African statute which amended this offence, the criticism of the Women’s Legal Centre recorded that the provisions of section 113 of the General Law Amendment Act 46 of 1935 (which sets out the offence) are “overly broad, lacking in definition, archaic and their constitutional validity is questionable, often impinging on the right to dignity of women charged under it”. The purpose of this note is to examine these criticisms, assessing both the substantive aspects and constitutional aspects of the offence, in the course of an appraisal of the recent case of S v Molefe (2012 (2) SACR 574 (GNP)). The case of Levkovic will provide a useful comparative reference point for the inquiry into the constitutionality of the offence. First, however, it is necessary to place the offence in its historical context.

Hate Speech against Dalits on Social Media: Would a Penny Sparrow be Prosecuted in India for Online Hate Speech?

This article analyzes the Indian hate speech law from the perspective of social media. Recent research shows extensive use of caste-based hate speech on Facebook, including derogatory references to caste-based occupations such as manual scavenging. This article attempts to examine whether the Scheduled castes / Scheduled Tribes (SC / ST) Prevention of Atrocities Act is equipped to deal with online hate speech against Dalits. The jurisprudence around the applicability of Atrocities Act to caste-based hate speech has been analyzed. After the said analysis, the applicability of ‘International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD)’ to caste- based discrimination has been studied. Thereafter, the standard of proof for prosecuting hate speech under Indian domestic law has been compared with ICERD to analyze whether Indian domestic law is in compliance with international standards. The article further analyzes whether caste-based hate speech ought to be regulated only when there is incitement to violence or hatred, or it can also be regulated when it violates the right to dignity of Dalits. At the same time, the article also briefly examines whether such prosecution would be in violation of global free-speech standards.

Embracing Humanity and Reclaiming Nature: Neglected Gendered Discourses in the Struggles of Western Cape Farm Workers

This essay reflects on the unheeded cry from South Africa’s most marginalised people—farm workers—for recognition of their personhood and right to dignity. Their continuing struggles for decent wages and living conditions in South Africa’s neoliberal agricultural system, which primarily values efficiency and profit, risk further entrenching a dehumanising system and reproducing similar conditions of exploitation. Among other radical writers, Frantz Fanon has alerted us to the need to strive for a “universal humanity” as a way out of this paradox, while many indigenous peoples’ movements have gone further to insist that we reclaim the sacredness of all of nature and recognise that humans and their economy are derivative from and subordinate to nature. These alternative and counter-colonial traditions often implicitly or explicitly invoke ideas about the feminine and the sacred in their definitions of resisting or transcending oppression. Such movements suggest that what is needed is to reclaim our sacred attitude to nature and to one another, and to fundamentally restructure and transform the blueprints of our societies to reflect this attitude.

Dignity Rights for a pandemic

The concept of human dignity means, quite simply, that every person has inherent equal worth. This incontrovertible but profound concept is derived from the body of dignity law that has developed since the end of World War II at the international, regional, national, and subnational levels, where dignity has become the central axis around which law rotates. Both the UN Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights confirm the foundational place of the recognition of human dignity in the building of the new postwar world order. Advancing human dignity also is a central premise of the binding International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and virtually all subsequent instruments addressing human well-being. The right to dignity is guaranteed by the national constitutions of more than 160 countries. Further, courts around the globe have applied the right to dignity thousands of times in cases involving issues that matter everyday to everyday people, including involving poverty, employment, marriage, adoption, incarceration, education, safety, health, discrimination, immigration, and police brutality, and many more. The pandemic wrought by Covid-19 has tested the boundaries of dignity’s role under the of law. Millions are infected. Hundreds of thousands have died. Nations have closed their borders. People are quarantined, desparate, and desparing, leading to social and economic dislocation not seen since the Great Depression. This article highlights the normative and legal dimensions of dignity, and how taking account of dignity under law can improve outcomes during the pandemic. It theorizes that, while not a cure, recognizing dignity under law can be therapeutic in these troubling times.