Life and the right to life as the basic constitutional right of a person

Abstract

Summary. The purpose of this article is to study the concept of life and the constitutional right to life, define their essence, the relationship of these concepts, disclose their features, as well as the experience of the European Court of Human Rights in their protection. In the context of disclosing the subject of research to achieve the goal of scientific research and to ensure the completeness, objectivity, reliability and persuasiveness of the results, the author used a set of general and special methods that are characteristic of legal science. In particular, the origin and long historical path of development of these human rights were studied with the help of the historical method. The use of the system-structural method formulated the general structure of the study, and dialectical method analyzed the provisions of law and case law on the peculiarities of the right to life. Using a comparative legal method, the legislation of foreign countries was analyzed, which provided an opportunity to use their positive experience in terms of protection of the right to human life. This article reveals the scientific approaches of researchers to determine the essence of life, the right to life, death, identifying their features and distinguishing between them. The paper analyzes ways to protect the right to life. A great deal of the work is devoted to the analysis of the law enforcement practice of the European Court of Human Rights, both in general and on the feasibility of the existence of certain criteria for restricting the right to life. Based on the study, it is concluded that life and the right to life are similar concepts. It is argued that restrictions on the right to life due to a pandemic are possible if the disease is confirmed. In all other cases, the state must provide free access to coronavirus testing, in the case of a negative test, the opportunity to freely exercise the right to life. It is noted that a significant number of foreign countries provide for the right to life in the constitutions, but there are countries where the right to happiness or physical well-being is still being developed. It is well known that everyone has the right to happiness, which is different for everyone, so the creation of a mechanism to ensure and respect the right to life rests with the state and the individual.