Examples of breaches of the right to life in prisons
Content warning: the information on this page is about Aboriginal deaths in custody and self-harm and suicide in prisons.
Examples in Australia
The coronial inquest into the passing of Veronica Nelson looked at prison staff who ignored a woman begging for medical help just hours before she passed away in her cell. The Coroner’s Court of Victoria said the Corrections Victoria staff who ignored Veronica had a duty under the section 9 right to life to make sure she got appropriate medical treatment, and they had failed to uphold their duty. You can read more by looking at the Finding into death with inquest of Nelson, Veronica (COR 2020 0021) [2023] VicCorC 28312 (30 January 2023).
Examples from overseas
Cases from overseas about the right to life in prisons mainly focus on the duty of governments to prevent self-harm and suicide.
The UN Human Rights Committee’s has said that the right to life means governments have a duty to take the actions needed to protect the life of someone in prison against suicide, forced suicide and killing by other people in custody. This comes from the case of Barbato v Uruguay (Comm. 84/1981, 21 October 1982).
In the European case of Renolde v France [2008] ECHR 5608/05, a man was suffering from ‘psychotic disorders’, had attempted suicide and was put in an isolation cell (where he was going to be confined for 45 days). 18 days after his first attempt at self-harm, he committed suicide. The European Court of Human Rights found that France had failed to ‘comply with their positive obligation to protect… [the man’s] right to life’.
In the Canadian case of British Columbia Civil Liberties Association v Attorney-General (Canada) [2018] BCSC 62, the Supreme Court of British Columbia said that laws allowing people to be put in solitary confinement for their own safety or the safety of others breached the right to life. The Supreme Court said the right to life was engaged (or relevant) because people in solitary confinement were at a higher risk of suicide than others, and because being in solitary confinement increased the person’s risk of self-harm. (However, the recent Queensland case of Owen-D’Arcy v Chief Executive, Queensland Corrective Services [2021] QSC 273 looked at the use of solitary confinement on a man in prison, and the right to life was not a focus).
Important: Section 32(2) of the Victorian Charter of Human Rights says that international law (including international human rights cases) can be taken into account when interpreting Victorian laws like the Corrections Act 1986 (Vic). However, courts don’t have to consider international cases, and they don’t have to agree with they say.