Joking, of course! What an exceptionally noble and admirable way to begin drafting a constitution.
🇩🇪 ♥ 🇲🇽
Translation
“Human dignity is inviolable. Article 1 of the Basic Law (GG)”
“Die Würde des Menschen ist unantastbar” is the first sentence of Article 1 of the German Basic Law (Grundgesetz, GG).
Disclosure: Alt text & translation were AI-generated.
Official translation is “Human dignity shall be inviolable”, but yeah, same thing.
https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_gg/englisch_gg.html#p0020
weird that the official translation uses shall be and not is. Because ‘shall be’ is a far weaker phrasing. If it ‘is’ inviolable than that is a spoken fact. Shall be is more of a guideline or ideal.
It’s more accurate though. Because human dignity is violated.
Also, if it was unviolable there would be no point in making laws to protect it.
I’m guessing, the translators just looked at typical English Legalese and emulated that style (even though the German text also uses the stronger “is”). For example, the US constitution is also written with “shall be”: https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/
Ultimately, no matter how you formulate it, constitutions do still need to be upheld by people. Both, their continued existence, but also enforcement.
@Ephera @lenuup
Pretty sure shall is a requirement in legal terms. Juts like
"In this document, the following verbal forms are used:
— “shall” indicates a requirement; "
https://www.iso.org/ISO-house-style.html
And the direct translation is “The dignity of man is untouchable”
The point is: that goes also for criminals, and prisoners. And yes, it should go for refugees too, even brown skinned ones. Oh, and people on social security. And disabled people.
We did a lot of violating human dignity in the past, that’s the reason it’s the first article of the constitution. It’s a good principle. One that many other constitutions don’t have. We can be proud about that.
However I don’t think many people grasp the implications of it not being uphold, unless they become a victim themselves, and I believe that a large part of the population does not care or will be favorable towards dignity-violations, especially against the most heinous of criminals, and minorities.
