Human Dignity and Integrity of Persons Deprived of Liberty in Light of the Paradigm of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights

Abstract

The modern concept of human dignity links its guarantee to a strong democratic system within a social state of rights, based on a peculiar reading of the notion of the "right to have rights" (Arendt, 1994). In Colombia, in cases such as that of persons deprived of liberty, access to dignity is far from reality, and the prison population is found in conditions of extreme neglect. The objective of this article is to analyze the paradigms present in the pronouncements of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the Constitutional Court of Colombia and the Pasto (Nariño) Courts, regarding the dignity of persons deprived of liberty, through a documentary study. It is concluded that, despite various declarations of the Constitutional Court and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, a systematic violation of a range of rights of persons deprived of their liberty in the different prisons of the country persists.