Constitutionalisation of civil law: The right to respect for private life and human dignity

AuthorRamona Delia Popescu
PositionFaculty of Law, Public Law Department, University of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania
Pages150-156
AGORA International Journal of Juridical Sciences, www.juridicalj ournal.univagora.ro
ISSN 1843-570X, E-ISSN 2067-7677
No. 1 (2013), pp. 150-156
150
CONSTITUTIONALISATION OF CIVIL LAW: THE RIGHT TO
RESPECT FOR PRIVATE LIFE AND HUMAN DIGNITY
R. D. Popescu
Ramona Delia Popescu
Faculty of Law, Public Law Department
University of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania
*Correspondence:
Ramona Delia Popescu, Faculty of Law, University of Bucharest,
Bucharest, 36-46 M. Koglniceanu Blvd., sect. 5, cod 050107
Email: ramona23ro@yahoo.com.
Abstract
Personality rights are fundamental rights and also subjective rights, enjoying double
protection at constitutional and civil law level. The legal nature, the content, the limits and
interferences to these rights are regulated by the Constitution, international conventions on
human rights Romania is a party to and the new civil code.
Keywords: constitutionalisation, private life, human dignity, limits, interference
Introduction
The new Civil code
1
provides new rights called personality rights or right of publicity
in common law system, such as: right to life, to safety, to physical and moral integrity, rights
to respect for private life and human dignity, right to one’s own image, the right to name and
domicile, right over one’s own body and other rights recognized by law. In most civil law
jurisdictions these rights are provided by civil codes and are generally inheritable. In
common law jurisdictions these rights are generally judge-made law, non-inheritable, not
clearly distinguished.
In Romania these rights were first provided by the Constitution
2
, then some of them
being introduced in civil code through the phenomenon of constitutionalisation under the
form of dispersion of norms.
1. Legal features
Personality rights are the rights inherent to human beings, endowed with ratio and
conscience, they are fundamental rights provided in the supreme law of a state. The features
of fundamental rights suppose they are subjective rights, essential for the citizen’s life, liberty
and dignity, requisite for the development of human personality, provided and guaranteed by
the constitution and laws.
These rights are included into the first generation of rights, the criterion for
determining a generation being their evolution. In order to include a right into one or other
generation of rights it is important to determine the nature of the right, the owner of the right,
the action of the owner. The first generation of human rights is based on the principles of
individualism and non – interference of the state power, being designated as “negative” rights.
1
Published in the Official Gazette of Romania no. 505 of 15 July 2011; it entered into force on 1
st
October 2011;
the personality rights are regulated in chart I, title II, chapter II of the Civil code. It is of great interest to take
also into consideration the Law no. 71/2011 for the enforceability of Law no. 287/2009 of c ivil code, published
in the Official Gazette of Romania no. 409 of 10 June 2011.
2
Revised in 2003 and published in the Official Gazette of Romania no. 767 of 31 October 2003. The r ights are
provided by articles 1 par. (3), 22, 26, 30 par. (6).

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