El "yo" y el "otro" en la jurisprudencia del Tribunal Constitucional. STC 196/2004, de 15 de noviembre

Abstract

This paper is not intended to add another definition on the right to privacy to the already existing list, but to show its possible contents. As the Constitutional Court indicates, this right will depend on the existing values and social ideas. For this purpose the privacity - sociability dualism is studied firstly, to delimit it ontologically and to point out the interrelation between its two extremes. To follow with the argument the meticulous legislative treatment and the interpretation which has been made by the Constitutional Court are analysed. It can be observed that the already mentioned Court hierarchizes and gives importance to the right to intimacy and other values such us the right to information which is demanded by the democratic principle of publicity. The most relevant conclusion could be that whenever there is a confrontation between the privacy being understood as the zone which is reserved for the glance of the other, and the sociability, the Constitutional Court has inclined its decisions in favour of the "I", that is, in favour of the intimacy. On the other hand, when the confrontation does not imply the desecration of the intimate sphere but the limitation of its manifestation, the Constitutional Court gives preference to the social aspect to the detriment of the personal one.