advantageous procedures put in place by the Respondent State since the establishment of legal nationality. In this regard, successive reforms undertaken by the Respondent State are significant but inadequate. Consequently, the laws and practices of the Respondent State violate the provisions of Article 5 of the Charter with regard to all victims. Right to the Respect of Dignity 139. Under the Preamble of the African Charter quoting the Charter of the Organization of African Unity, dignity is one of the « essential objectives for the achievement of the legitimate aspirations of the African peoples ». Dignity is, therefore, the soul of the African human rights system and which it shares with both the other systems and all civilized human societies. Dignity is consubstantial, intrinsic and inherent to the human person. In other words, when the individual loses his dignity, it is his human nature itself which is called into question, to the extent that it is likely to interrogate the validity of continuing to belong to human society. Thus, a rape victim can decide to go as far as taking her life so that she does not have to confront her dehumanization and the accusing and degrading look of society. When dignity is lost, everything is lost. In short, when dignity is violated, it is not worth the while to guarantee most of the other rights. 140. The Commission considers that some of the rights protected by the Charter have a supreme and dependent relationship with the right to dignity. The same can be said of the right to legal status protected by Article 5 of the Charter. Various legal authorities agree that dignity and legal status are fundamentally interdependent. Thus, in Kuric and one Other v. Slovenia, for example, the European Human Rights Court establishes this connection as follows: « … the right to legal status is a normal, natural and logical consequence of the human personality and the dignity inherent to the former; it is a natural and inherent component of every human being and his human personality ».35 In Yean and Bosico v. The Dominican Republic, the InterAmerican Court decided that « The failure to recognize legal status is a violation of human dignity because it absolutely denies the condition of an individual to be a subject of law and makes him vulnerable to the infringement of his rights by the State and other individuals ».36 141. By agreeing with these conceptions of the crucial importance of the recognition of legal status to the enjoyment of the right to dignity, the Kuric and Other v. Slovenia European Human Rights Court, Petition 26828/06, Order of 26 June 2012, Partly concurring opinion of Judge Vucinic. 36 Yean and Bosico v. The Dominican Republic Inter-American Human Rights Court, Order of 8 September 2005, para. 178. 35 43