The Right to Dignity Rex D. Glensy - Columbia Law School

128 COLUMBIA HUMAN RIGHTS LAW REVIEW [43:65
accorded on account of their dignity is protection of their individual
right to liberty and some basis measure of equality.” 284
A further reason for this approach relates to the fact that
certain rights (including the right to dignity) could be motivated by
policy concerns that are not easily circumscribed to one specific
normative thrust. 285 What this means is that there are inseparable or
extremely closely related attributes of dignity that can encompass
aspects of equality, autonomy, rationality, liberty, as well as other
things. 286 In other words, “[t]he term dignity describes the protection
of objectives of dignity and privacy, of respect and trust, and of
autonomy and nondiscrimination.” 287 A multifaceted paradigmatic
norm that interlocks and overlaps with several other values should
therefore be treated as part of one of those values whenever the latter
are invoked within a specific situation. As extensively quoted above,
the South African Constitutional Court has summarized the essential
ethos of the proxy approach to the right to dignity as follows:
[D]ignity . . . is a justiciable and enforceable right that
must be respected and protected . . . however, where
the value of human dignity is offended, the primary . .
. breach occasioned may be of a more specific right
such as the right to bodily integrity, the right to
equality, or the right not to be subjected to slavery,
servitude, or forced labour. 288
One established right in the United States that can integrate
specific references to the right to dignity is the right to liberty,
enumerated in the Constitution as well as all state constitutions.
“Admittedly, liberty and dignity are ancient bedfellows,” 289 so it
284. Eichner, supra note 23, at 1615–1616.
285. See e.g. Ctr. for Applied Legal Studies, supra note 160, at 89 (noting
that “freedom of expression . . . is held up as central to democratic freedom,
equality, and dignity”) (emphasis added).
286. See Greenawalt, supra note 90, at 152–153 (1989) (comparing
justifications for free speech law and characterizing as “closely related” those
pertaining to dignity and equality with those concerning imposing limits on the
government when state intervention would curtail the autonomy and rationality
of an individual).
287. Dieter Hart, Patients’ Rights and Patients’ Participation: Individual
and Collective Involvement, Partnership and Participation in Health Law, 11 Eur.
J. of Health L. 17, 19 (2004).
288. Dawood v. Minister of Home Affairs 2000 (3) SA 936 (CC) at 961–962
para. 35. This is also the approach taken by the state of Montana. See supra
section II.B.1.
289. Fyfe, supra note 4, at 11.