The death penalty in the context of article 2 of the European Convention for the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms: the issues of interpretation

The article analyses one of four pivotal exceptions provided by Article 2 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, namely: the death penalty. Nowadays, the death penalty is regarded as an unacceptable form of punishment. However, this type of punishment exists in 25 countries around the world. In 2015, 1,634 people were executed. This was 573 more than in 2014 (without data on China, where information about the death penalty is confidential). According to Article 2 (1) of the abovementioned Convention, the participating state can deprive a person of life through the death penalty under the stipulation that the sentence is delivered by the court only for those crimes which entail capital punishment. The way of executing such a penalty, the personal circumstances of the convicted person, the disparity between penalty measure and offense severity, as well as the conditions facing by a person on death row are several aspects according to which the treatment of death row prisoners or their punishment are covered by Article 3 prohibiting torture and inhuman or humiliating treatment or punishment. Views on death penalty are important while assessing whether the permissible limit of suffering or humiliation has been exceeded. The author recognizes the crucial role of the following cases (decisions) of the European Court of Human Rights: Öcalan v. Turkey, Jens Soering v. the United Kingdom, Al-Saadoon and Mufdhi v. the United Kingdom, Bader and Kanbor v. Sweden, Selmouni v. France, Ergi v. Turkey and Andronicou and Constantinou v. Cyprus. The complaints addressed to the court under Article 2 focused primarily on causing death in the fight against terrorism.