Human dignity is intrinsic to every human being and is universally recognised as a fundamental right. Under a previous oppressive system, most South Africans had been denied basic human rights, including the right to human dignity. The constitutional negotiations of the 1990s abolished the apartheid system and constituted a sovereign democratic state founded on fundamental values of human dignity, equality and the advancement of human rights and freedoms. The Constitutional Court regards human dignity as one of the core constitutional values and has used dignity to establish a moral basis for the application of other fundamental rights (e.g. equality, security of the person and the right to life), and to create a climate in which the values of the Constitution can permeate through the legal system and into society at large.