An Analysis of Functions of Human Dignity in Constitutional Law with Focus on Case Law of Czech Constitutional Court

After the concept of human dignity has spread into a large number of constitutions from all over the world, detailed examination of this phenomenon is steadily gaining importance. This thesis finds three autonomous approaches to human dignity in constitutional law, namely a subjective human right, the source of human rights and an objective constitutional value. Each of these approaches is based on a particular historical view on human dignity. The key argument of this thesis states that the connection of the three aforementioned legitimate approaches leads to the creation of dangerous and undesirable hybrid forms of human dignity. These forms tend to be axiomatic, preventing from the rational legal argumentation as well as from the use of the proportionality principle. The implementation of the concept of human dignity in such an axiomatic way is an argumentative foul, unfortunately so frequently made by both judiciary and doctrines. The thesis further focuses on the examination of the axiomatic human dignity phenomenon with respect to the Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic decision-making specifically. Using quantitative methods, it first comes to the conclusion that the problem of axiomatic human dignity-related argumentation does not only exist in the Constitutional Court's..