Human Dignity in Montenegro

Abstract

This chapter traces and analyses the concept of human dignity in the current constitutional and legislative texts and in the practice of the Constitutional, the Supreme, as well as of the other courts of the Republic of Montenegro. In the Constitution of Montenegro, human dignity is recognized as an individual right encompassing the personal right to security, physical and mental integrity and privacy, prohibition of slavery, torture, inhumane and degrading treatment and certain unspecified individual rights. The Constitution also requires the protection of dignity in the realm of media and biomedicine, in legal proceedings as well as during deprivation of liberty, detention and in prison environment. The concept of dignity is also employed in many different laws of Montenegro and repeatedly applied by the courts of all levels including the Constitutional Court. In one of its relevant decisions, the Constitutional Court marked 'ill-treatment' as an umbrella term for offences to human dignity and, in this and other decisions, specified further its meaning by differentiating the material and procedural aspect of ill-treatment, even extending it into the issue of the quality of justice. The Criminal Code of Montenegro identifies affronts to dignity as the criminal offence 'ill-treatment', while other laws define it as the violation of the right to honour, dignity and reputation and require the protection of dignity in specific environments (work, health, prison, etc.), in cases of vulnerability (mentally ill, children, elderly, etc.), in cases of other power asymmetries, etc. The use of dignity in the Constitution, laws and in court decisions is classified and discussed.