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Article 3: Prohibition on Torture
No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
This Article is an absolute right, which means that it provides absolute protection against treatment which amounts to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment, with no exceptions.
A wide range of treatment can be considered to breach Article 3, and it will depend on the circumstances of the case, including the effect that it has on the victim, taking into account his or her age, health and mental and physical condition. However, the ECHR has made it clear that ill treatment has to attain a minimum level of severity before it can be considered as inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment (Ireland v UK 1978). So treatment such as use of handcuffs, solitary confinement for short periods and use of reasonable force during arrest will not normally breach Article 3.
However, where you are detained by the state (for instances, in prison, police custody or detained under the Mental Health Act 1983), then any use of physical force against you will breach Article 3, unless the use of force is strictly necessary because of your conduct.
A refusal to give any financial support to asylum seekers, and prohibiting them from working, thereby leaving them destitute, may also breach the article (R v Secretary of State for Home Department ex parte Limbuela 2005).
Article 3 not only imposes a duty on the state not to subject you to torture, or inhuman or degrading treatment, but also imposes some positive obligations to prevent you suffering such treatment. The most important of these obligations is the requirement that you should not be expelled to a country where you are likely to be tortured or where there will be inadequate protection against persecution (Chahal v UK 1996, Dashamir Koci v Secretary of State for the Home Department 2003).
Article 3 also imposes on the state a duty to impose criminal sanctions on individuals who subject others to treatment which breaches Article 3. It may also impose a duty to protect individuals who are at a real and immediate risk of ill treatment contrary to Article 3, where the state knows or ought to know about the risk. So where children were at a clear and immediate risk of serious physical and sexual abuse by their parents, the ECHR considered that the state should have taken measure to protect them, and the state’s failure to do so breached the children’s Article 3 rights.
Relevant sections
This Article is an absolute right, which means that it provides absolute protection against treatment which amounts to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment, with no exceptions.
A wide range of treatment can be considered to breach Article 3, and it will depend on the circumstances of the case, including the effect that it has on the victim, taking into account his or her age, health and mental and physical condition. However, the ECHR has made it clear that ill treatment has to attain a minimum level of severity before it can be considered as inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment (Ireland v UK 1978). So treatment such as use of handcuffs, solitary confinement for short periods and use of reasonable force during arrest will not normally breach Article 3.
However, where you are detained by the state (for instances, in prison, police custody or detained under the Mental Health Act 1983), then any use of physical force against you will breach Article 3, unless the use of force is strictly necessary because of your conduct.
A refusal to give any financial support to asylum seekers, and prohibiting them from working, thereby leaving them destitute, may also breach the article (R v Secretary of State for Home Department ex parte Limbuela 2005).
Article 3 not only imposes a duty on the state not to subject you to torture, or inhuman or degrading treatment, but also imposes some positive obligations to prevent you suffering such treatment. The most important of these obligations is the requirement that you should not be expelled to a country where you are likely to be tortured or where there will be inadequate protection against persecution (Chahal v UK 1996, Dashamir Koci v Secretary of State for the Home Department 2003).
Article 3 also imposes on the state a duty to impose criminal sanctions on individuals who subject others to treatment which breaches Article 3. It may also impose a duty to protect individuals who are at a real and immediate risk of ill treatment contrary to Article 3, where the state knows or ought to know about the risk. So where children were at a clear and immediate risk of serious physical and sexual abuse by their parents, the ECHR considered that the state should have taken measure to protect them, and the state’s failure to do so breached the children’s Article 3 rights.
Relevant sections
- The rights of prisoners
- The rights of immigrants
- The rights of people detained under the Mental Health Act 1983
