THE GUARANTEE OF HUMAN DIGNITY IN THE CONSTITUTIONAL LAW SINCE 2000

Swiss federal constitutional law did not include any explicit guarantee of human dignity until the nineties. At the outset, human dignity was understood only as a central issue that, indeed, took the protection of personal freedom as its foundation. With the growing influence of the protection of human rights on a European and international scale, e.g., the antitorture and antiracism conventions, the protection of human dignity became an essential request in and of itself. However, what really led to constitutional change was the introduction of guarantees for human dignity in reproductive medicine and genetic technology (1992) as well as in transplant medicine (1999), within the framework of a political, legal response to the dangers that biomedicine can cause. With laws and legal modifications regarding fertility treatments, genetic research on people, research with embryonic stem cells, the limits of patents and organ, tissue and cell transplants, the constitutional guarantees of human dignity were clearly articulated. On the other hand, the legal limits and the guidelines for research with humans will have to be determined shortly in the Constitution. Last but not least, in 1999, on the occasion of what was essentially a formal review of the Constitution, Article 7 was once again defined as meaning that the "dignity of persons must be respected and protected." This central norm has had major repercussions for constitutional jurisprudence in a short time. For this reason, in the area of protection of human dignity, much has been achieved generally, but above all, much has been specifically achieved in the area of the development of biomedical law.