CARE FOR OLDER PEOPLE: A FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT IN THE MAKING

Abstract

People’s vulnerability requires care if their dignity is to be preserved. Human dignity is a constitutional value that is preserved by the realization of fundamental rights. The article raises some initial considerations on the relevance and feasibility of a fundamental right to care. The relevance would be given by its rationale, a task proper to philosophy, not to analytical jurisprudence or the science of law. Regarding the viability of establishing a fundamental right to care, the aim is to contribute to laying the foundations of the debate, introducing its possibilities based on the elements (subjects, ownership, object, purpose, effects, limits, etc.) of the theory of fundamental rights, and relying on the perspective of one of the groups that will necessarily have to be its holders, the elderly.