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Reply - Justice Laurie Ackermann 223
As Bernard Williams has pointed out: ‘[t]he ground of respect owed to
each man thus emerges in the Kantian theory as a kind of secular
analogue of the Christian conception of the respect owed to all men
as equally children of God.’ 15
Some might say that this philosophical and theological digging
down into the meaning of constitutional human dignity (worth) is an
intellectual irrelevance, that has nothing to contribute to the
‘practical’ ‘realities’ of daily life and the running of a modern state.
I would argue that such a view is gravely misconceived. After the
tragedies of World War II, the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human
Rights placed inherent human dignity (worth), together with equality
and freedom at the heart of practical measures to prevent a
repetition of the barbaric acts of the recent past that ‘have outraged
the conscience of mankind’. To prevent rebellion against tyranny and
oppression, the Preamble to the Universal Declaration regards it as
essential that human rights ‘be protected by the rule of law.’ The
Declaration also proclaims that ‘every individual and every organ of
society ... shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect
for [human rights and freedoms] and by progressive measures ... to
secure their universal and effective recognition and observance.’ At
the heart of Article 1 is the categorical statement that all human
beings are ‘born free and equal in dignity and rights’ and are
‘endowed with reason and conscience.’ Yet, in the nearly 60 years
since the Declaration, barbaric acts, which continue to outrage the
conscience of humankind, have continued to occur with painful
regularity. The continued exploration, at the deepest level, of the
meaning and implications of human dignity (worth) continues to be an
imperative and not a luxury. I am not certain that material progress
will be made until we realise that in the act of infringing the dignity
of others, we are rejecting and harming our own human worth.
Having paraded above my own definition of human dignity
(worth), let me readily concede that it is probably not possible to
capture the full meaning of human worth in so simple a definition. We
still have much to learn about it, and its delineations will no doubt be
developed (prudently) on a case by case basis by our courts. Even the
German Federal Constitutional Court (‘BVerfG’) has not attempted to
give a comprehensive definition of the personality rights, which form
an integral part of the German concept of human dignity
(‘Menschenwürde’) as it does in South Africa. Instead it has followed
15
B Williams ‘The idea of equality’ in P Laslett & WG Runciman (eds) Philosophy,
politics and society (1967) 116.