Protects Your Right To Life

This means that nobody, including the Government, can try to end your life. It also means the Government should take appropriate measures to safeguard life by making laws to protect you and, in some circumstances, by taking steps to protect you if your life is at risk.

Public authorities should also consider your right to life when making decisions that might put you in danger or that affect your life expectancy.

If a member of your family dies in circumstances that involve the state, you may have the right to an investigation. The state is also required to investigate suspicious deaths and deaths in custody.

The courts have decided that the right to life does not include a right to die.

Are there any restrictions to this right?

Article 2 is often referred to as an ' absolute right'. These are rights that can never be interfered by the state. These are situation, however, when it does not apply.

For example, a person's right to life us not breached if they die when a public authority ( such as the police ) uses necessary force to:

• Stop them carrying out unlawful violence
• Make A lawful arrest
• Stop them escaping lawful detainment
• Stop a riot or uprising.

Article 2: Right to life:

1. Everyone's right to life shall be protected by law. No one shall be deprived of his life intentionally save in the execution of a sentence of a court following his conviction of a crime for which the penalty us provided by law.
    
2. Deprivation of life shall not be regarded as inflicted in contravention of this article when it results from the use of force which is no more than absolutely necessary:
   
   • In defence of any person from unlawful violence
   • In order to effect a arrest or to prevent the escape of a person lawfully detained
   • In action lawfully taken for the purpose of quelling a riot or insurrection.