Ricerc@Sapienza

The article analyses the recent judgment of the African Court on Human and People Rights in the case of Rajabu and others v. Tanzania. The case concerns five Tanzanian nationals condemned to death by hanging and concerns three different but related objects: Tanzania’s violation of the right to a fair trial, of the right to life and of the right to dignity. The article focuses on the Court's reasoning on the right to life and the right to dignity as opposed to the issue of death penalty.

The paper, considering that, in recent years, the concept of dignity is opposed to that of life and frequently combined with the alleged right to assisted suicide, aims to identify the cultural premises of this assumption and to evaluate it in the light of the Constitution. Crucial appear the theories based on the distinction between man and person, such as social Darwinism. In these views the dignity of every human being depends on capacities of autonomy or self-determination.