The Philosophical Foundations of the Human Rights in the Constitution of the Polish Republic of 1997

Abstract

The Constitution of the Polish Republic of 2nd April 1997 have widely introduced norms of the human and citizen's rights and freedoms, devoting to these problems a separate chapter. All individual rights and freedoms derive from man's natural and inalienable dignity, as it is expressly said in art. 30. The article is a indirect reference to natural law in its Tomistic conception. According to this conception, the essence of the dignity of the human person is existence itself in a certain manner. All people from the very beginning of their existence have personal dignity, irrespectively of their current possibilities to act. In view of this, everyone is equally entitled to human rights.

It follows from analyses of particular norms of human rights that the principle of dignity is not consequently carried out.