protection of personality rights

Protection of personality rights is guaranteed to every human or, more precisely, to every individual. It is the right to control unequivocal aspects of one's physical and mental integrity (also, it takes care of protection of physical and mental integrity) during one's life.

In the jurisprudence of the Czech Republic, the main source of personhood is, besides the Constitution and the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms, the Civil Code, which analysis the scope and the content of rights to the protection of personality. Such rights comprise, for example, human health, human dignity, name, privacy and manifestations of personal character. However, the regulation of personality rights protection is not limited to the Civil Code. Instead, the protection of personality rights is entangled in numerous other law fields, e.g. the Criminal Law or the Media Law.

In the case of an unwarranted interference, the aggrieved person can apply many different claims derived from the Civil Code.

The law differentiates between an unwarranted and warranted interference with personality rights. In most cases, the former case differs from the former by a justification of the interference. Such a justification can be represented by an agreement from the aggrieved person or by legal licenses, e.g. news reporting or educational and scientific use.

The protection of personality rights is closely related to the protection of reputation and to the protection of privacy of legal persons, i.e. to the rights linked to the protection of a personality of a legal person. Even with all the differences between legal entities and individuals, the personality rights protection given by the Civil Code to the former significantly resembles the one provided to the latter.