The Personal Identity of the Human Being and the Right to Privacy from the Perspective of Standards of the European Court of Human Rights: Theoretical Legal Reflections

Abstract

This article seeks to present the problem of the personal identity of the human being as an important element of the right to one’s private life being respected. The presentation is from the point of view of the guarantees related to the establishment of standards for the protection of human rights by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. Relevant for this reflection is the theoretical legal approach to this matter, with particular reference to the methods of interpretation of the European Convention on Human Rights. The article discusses the problem of understanding personal and social identity in a cultural context related to group and individual axiology. It presents historical determinants of the ideology of approaching the status of the individual within the state and the general standards of the right to have one’s private life respected. Two key methods of interpretation for devising standards of protection, i.e. the evolutionary interpretation and the method of the cultural margin of assessment, are also analysed. Not only do these methods allow for taking changes in European social axiology into account, but they also allow for the distinctiveness of social axiology at the local level. From this perspective, an answer is given to the question, do the ECHR’s standards for the protection of the right to respect for private life serve to reinforce the personal identity of a human being?