The role of dignity in equality law: Lessons from Canada and South Africa

Abstract

This paper examines the link made on occasion between the concept of dignity and substantive equality; it is further noted that dignity can have very different meanings in different contexts. While the notion of dignity does not often play a substantive role in the resolution of decisions, sometimes the underlying understanding of dignity does matter. However, in all cases, judges should avoid the temptation to rely on unarticulated value judgments or subjective notions of dignity. When judges make reference to dignity, they should articulate the values underpinning their conception of it.* Lecturer in human rights, Human Rights Centre, School of Law. Queen's University of Belfast. I am grateful to colleagues in the Human Rights Centre, Queen's University of Belfast, and to Fiona O'Connell and participants at the Equality and Social Inclusion conference in Queen's, February 2006, for comments on an earlier draft. Responsibility for any inadequacies is mine alone.

Dignity or discrimination: what paves the road towards equal recognition of same-sex couples in the European Union?

“…53). Whether this is indeed the case can be subjective and invites further uncertainty into the legal analysis (McCrudden, 2008;O'Connell, 2008).…”

Comparative Discrimination Law: Age as a Protected Ground

“…Again the argument has resonance in respect to age, where the use of retirement may work as a communal good if it increases the access of younger workers to the labour market, but it may at the same time infringe individual dignity. 43 The example of retirement illustrates the difficulties in using dignity as a core aim of equality law. Compulsory retirement can be understood to undermine dignity, because work acts as a source of identity and status.44 Denying workers access to this benefit on the basis of age, by requiring that they retire, diminishes dignity and thus infringes equality interests.…”

Replaying the Past

“…South Africa and Canada are both examples of legal regimes committed to the purposive and contextsensitive interpretations of constitutional rights (seeO'Connell 2008, White 2017. Related here is Peggy Cooper Davis' proposal for a "responsive constitutionalism" approach to interpretation in the United States to confront the history of law-constructed and -sanctioned racial injustice(Davis 2009).…”