The right to life
The right to life is protected by Article 2 of the Human Rights Act.
Some examples of when your right to life might be at risk include:
Abuse or neglect in detention or care which leads to death.
If healthcare staff refuse to give you life-saving treatment because of your mental health or mental capacity issue.
If you tell the police that you think your life is in danger, or that threats have been made against your life, and they fail to take action.
If you express thoughts of suicide to a public official and they don’t take steps to protect you.
If you go to hospital with serious injuries or signs that your life may be at risk and they do not act.
Key Information
This right often comes up in:
Death and end of life, disability rights including SEND, ending violence against women, health, care & social work, mental health & capacity, safeguarding people and welfare support
Absolute right
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Can my right to life be restricted by a public official?
No, the right to life is an absolute right. A public official cannot deliberately take away your right to life (there are some very limited circumstances where the actions of police or armed forces will not be considered a breach of the right to life).
What duties do public officials have?
This means that public officials must not deliberately take away your life.
Public officials must take reasonable steps to protect your life when they know (or should know) that your life is at real and immediate risk. This risk could be from another official or other people like your family, or from yourself.
This means that there must be an investigation when public officials may have been involved in a death or failed to act, for example if a person was killed by a partner despite telling an official that they were in serious danger.
How does the protect duty work?
The courts have set out a test for determining whether a public official has a positive obligation to protect life, and whether this obligation has been met:
Does a public body know, or ought to have known (e.g. because they have formally taken responsibility for the welfare and safety of an individual or a real and immediate risk to their life has been reported to the official)...
... about a real and immediate risk to the individual’s life?
... and did the public official do all that was reasonably expected of them to protect life?
The Human Rights Act formally abolished the death penalty in the UK. This means that a public official, including the police or courts, cannot execute someone or sentence them to death as punishment for something they have done. This applies in all circumstances, including during peacetime and times of conflict. The death penalty is sometimes referred to as capital punishment.
Sentencing a person to death is considered to be a violation of the right to life (Article 2) and the right to freedom from torture and inhuman or degrading treatment (Article 3), which are both also protected under the Human Rights Act.
right to life (Article 2) right to freedom from torture and inhuman or degrading treatment (Article 3)The Human Rights Act also means that the UK cannot extradite people (that is, deport people to stand trial in another country), if there is a real risk that they could be sentenced to death or executed.
Can my right to be free from inhuman and degrading treatment be restricted by a public official?
No. This right is an absolute right, which means it cannot be restricted or interfered with by public officials under any circumstances.
absolute rightWhat duties do public officials have?
To respect your right:
This means that public officials must not execute you or sentence you to death.
To protect your right:
Public officials must take reasonable steps to protect this right if they know it is at risk. For example, if you face deportation to stand trial in another country where the death penalty is available, and there is a real risk you could be executed or sentenced to death.
To fulfil your right:
This means that there must be an investigation when public officials may have failed to protect this right.
Rights in action
The last execution in the UK took place in August 1964. The following year, Parliament passed a law suspending the death penalty across Great Britain (this did not extend to Northern Ireland) for all crimes except high treason, “piracy with violence”, arson in royal dockyards, and espionage. It was only with the Human Rights Act coming into force in 1998 that the death penalty was banned under UK law in all circumstances.
The UK is a member state of the Council of Europe which drafted the European Convention on Human Rights in 1950. The Council of Europe has made abolition of the death penalty a prerequisite of membership. As a result, nobody has been executed in any of the Council of Europe’s member states since 1997.
The UK has since renewed its commitment to opposing the death penalty. In February 2021, the UK International Ambassador for Human Rights delivered a statement saying, “The UK believes that the use of the death penalty undermines human dignity; any miscarriage of justice leading to its imposition is irreversible and irreparable and there is no conclusive evidence of it working as a deterrent to crime.”
the UK International Ambassador for Human Rights delivered a statementCan my right to be freedom of thought, conscience and religion be restricted by a public official?
Yes...and no!
The first part of this right, the right to hold or change religious or other beliefs is absolute. It recognises that people can believe what they want, but when they manifest (or practice) their beliefs they have to respect other people’s rights. This means that the right to believe and think is absolute and can never be restricted.
However…
This second part of this right is a non-absolute right which means it can be limited or restricted in certain circumstances. For example, the Government made laws limiting the number of people who could gather to worship during the Covid-19 pandemic.
But, like all other non-absolute rights, if the Government (or any public official) is going to limit the right to the freedom of thought, conscience and religion, the restriction has to be:
There must be a law which allows public officials to take that action or decision.
There is a good reason (for example public safety or protecting the rights of other people, including your family members or staff).
They have thought about other things they could do, but there is no other way to protect you or other people. It must be the least restrictive option.
You can ask the public official about their decision or action and ask them to tell you how it was lawful, legitimate and proportionate.
If you can think of a way to deal with this situation or decision that is less restrictive to you then you can raise it with the public official as the decision may not be proportionate.
What duties do public officials have?
This means that public officials should never treat people in an inhuman or degrading way.
This means that public officials should take reasonable steps to protect anyone they know (or should know) is at risk of inhuman or degrading treatment. This includes taking positive action when someone is known to be at risk of serious harm from another person such as a family member.
This means that when things go wrong, they should be investigated and steps should be taken to try and stop the same thing happening again. For example, there must be an investigation when public officials may have been involved in inhuman or degrading treatment.