Objektformel' - Eventual acts of damage to human dignity

• Author: Izabela Bratiloveanu
• Position: Faculty of Law and Social Sciences, Law Department, University of Craiova, Craiova, Romania
• Pages: 19-26

AGORA International Journal of Juridical Sciences, www. juridicaljournal.univagora.ro

ISSN 1843-570X, E-ISSN 2067-7677

No. 4 (2014), pp. 19-26

19

“OBJEKTFORMEL” – EVENTUAL ACTS OF DAMAGE

TO HUMAN DIGNITY

I. Bratiloveanu

Izabela Bratiloveanu

Faculty of Law and Social Sciences, Law Department

University of Craiova, Craiova, Romania

*Correspondence: Izabela Bratiloveanu, Facultatea de Drept i tiine Sociale, Horia no. 8 St.,

Craiova, Romania

E-mail: bratiloveanuisabela@yahoo.com

Abstract

The Object formula („Objecktformel”) has been designed and developed in the mid

century XX by Günter Dürig, s tarting from the second formula of Kant's categorical

imperative. The Federal Constitutional Court of Germany took the formula and applied it for

the first ti me in the case of the telephone conversations of December 15, 1970. The Object

formula („Objecktformel”) was taken from the German c onstitutional law and applied in the

jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights.

Keywords: human dignity; the jurisprudence of the Federal Constitutional Court of

Germany; the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights.

Introduction

The Object formula was designed and developed by Günter Dürig, is outlined based

on a negative form, but gives some legal possibilities. The theory of the object starts from the

second formula of Kantian categorical imperative: “act in your relationship with humanity, in

relation to your own person and in relationship with others, as they would be for a purpose

and not a simple way”.

According to Dürig, the guarante e of the dignity is rooted in the idea that man is

distinct from impersonal nature because of his mind that all ows him to become self-aware, to

self-determination and to shape his own de stiny. Therefore, to treat someone as an object is to

deny his ability to self-determination and to shape the environment. According to Dürig, the

human dignity is affected when a concrete human being is reduced to an object, to a simple

way, to an amount that you can dispense. The violations of the human dignity involve the

degradation of a person to a thing that can, entirely, be kept in short, to ha ve him be

registered, to be brainwashed, to be replaced, to be used and be expelled.

This expression comes from the historical context of post-World War II and is now

extensively applied to the Federal Constitutional Court of Ge rmany. The idea was taken up by

several German authors, with some nuances. The renowned German professor Josef Wintrich,

which started from Kant's formula, stated that a person must remain “an end in itself in

society and in the legal system can never be denigrated as a simple means of community, as a

simple instrument or simple object without rights in system”

1

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The application of the object theory in german constitutional law

To reify means, according to Kant's philosophy, to use the person only as a means to

another end. Treating a person as an object is a denial of the uniqueness of the individual. No

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My cont ribution at this work was supported by the strategic grant POSDRU/159/1.5/S/141699, Project ID 141699, co-

financed by the European Social Fund within the Sectorial Operational Program Human Resources Development 2007-2013.