Consept and protection of human dignity in Constitutional Law

Human dignity has been a topic for theological and philosophical discussions for thousands of years. Considering human dignity as a legal and constitutional concept is quite new. Human dignity is not equal to a certain life relation within a limited frame in contrast with seperate fundamental rights of the constitution. It is an abstract concept just like the principle of equality, and principles of democracy and social state. However, this abstractness is not an obstacle for evaluating it in terms of legal and constitutional framework and accepting it as a constitutional principle and base. It is unlikely to have a certain definition of human dignity. However, there exist some efforts to define it. The most important of these is the object formula originated from samples of violation and developed by German Constitutional Court. According to this definition, acting human beings as an object by public organs and ignoring their values as they are human beings spoil human dignity. The legal quality of human dignity is argumantative. Some authors consider human dignity as an objective constitutional norm whereas some others take it as a subjective public and fundamental right. The owner of human dignity is a human being. However, it is accepted that an unborn human would be making use of the protection of human dignity and this protection would continue to an extent after death. The protection of human dignity constitutionally requires that it be protected by its legal subdivisions and made its content more concrete. From this stand point of view, as sample protection branches, protection of human dignity is of paramount importance in terms of judgement according to criminal law. In the mean time, the secrecy of private life and protection of individual information is requisite for protection of it in terms of constitutional law. Finally, protection of human dignity as a requirement of the principle of social state and a minimum life guarantee suitable for human dignity is obligatory in terms of protection of it for constitutional law.