Human dignity as a universal legal value

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to substantiate the thesis about human dignity as the initial and universal legal value. The investigation belongs to philosophical and legal anthropology and axiology. In the process of research, phenomenological and analytical methods in their unity and complementarity were used. The article draws attention to the tendency of increasing interest to the value component of law in contemporary legal philosophy and doctrine. Traditionally, justice is recognized as the main legal value embodying the high purpose of law. It is a complex value and embodies a certain ratio of no less universal legal values based on human experience, such as human dignity, freedom and equality. Since the mid-twentieth century, human dignity has become the “new key concept” for law. This was due to the desire to prevent a recurrence of the state of barbarism – massive and large-scale humiliation of it during the Second World War. As an expression of a person’s intrinsic value, his subjectivity, human dignity is considered as a value basis of human rights as a whole, as well as an independent right, the inviolability of which is enshrined in the fundamental international documents and constitutions of developed countries. It finds protection in the practice of national Constitutional Courts (primarily the German Federal Constitutional Court), the European Court of Human Rights and other legal institutions. The ethical priority of dignity in the system of legal values emphasizes the universality of human rights, which are based on the initial and unconditional recognition of the other in his uniqueness, regardless of his belonging to a particular community.