Abstract

This chapter deals with the concept of human dignity and its protection in the Czech legal order. It shows that human dignity is considered one of the key legal concepts both at the constitutional and statutory level. The main problems of the constitutional protection of human dignity in the Czech Republic revolve around two interrelated questions. Firstly, the question is whether human dignity is an individual right or rather a norm of programatic nature. Secondly, it is questionable whether human dignity may be limited or whether it is considered an absolute right. The authors of the chapter argue that human dignity is protected by the Czech constitutional order as a individual right that may be limited and at the same time as a underlying principle of fundamental rights protection. At the statutory level, human dignity is protected by a number of statutes, most prominently by the new Civil Code and the Criminal Code.