Garbė ir orumas – žmogaus teisių alfa ir omega

As seen from a historical perspective, the human value situation has been defined via our basic relations: in the Antiquity – via our relations to the World (Kosmos) and Heaven, in the Middle Ages – via our relations to God, in the modern times – via our relations to ourselves and others. Currently the so-called idea of external authority, which manifests itself via a level of government power and not via moral level, prevails. Different European nations link the concept of honour and dignity with the worth of a person. At the moment attention to human honour and dignity can be recognized as an intrinsic feature of Western civilization. A content of the concepts “human honour” and “human dignity” in a particular society expresses the standard of human moral relation to oneself and relation between the society and an individual. It is claimed that every society has such a standard in a verbal and/or written form, and this is an extremely important tool for the assessment of an individual moral development The article aims at revealing national development of the concept of human honour and human dignity, while paying attention to the problems of a definition of the standard of human honour and dignity. In order to achieve this, the constitutional regulation, as well as the constitutional jurisprudence on the issues of human honour and dignity and the provisions of ordinary legislation dealing with the grounds and procedures of honour and dignity, is invoked first of all.