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The absolute prohibition of torture and other ill-treatment remains at the centre of modern human rights law. Respect for human beings, their lives and dignity is not only the basis of the international legal order, enshrined in numerous international human rights treaties and in general customary international law.
It is central to the legal systems of modern states, including Ukraine, whose Constitution, in addition to explicitly prohibiting torture and other ill-treatment, also contains a number of provisions that define the central role of a person and his or her dignity in the activities of the state.
The legal significance and categorical nature of the legal prohibition of torture and other forms of ill-treatment cannot in themselves be sufficient for the practical realisation of the right of a person not to be subjected to gross violations of his or her dignity.
The implementation of this prohibition requires determining the exact scope of negative and positive, including procedural, obligations of the state. This applies primarily to the treatment of persons under the full control of the state in conditions of deprivation of liberty in various contexts: police, criminal justice, psychiatry, social security, and finally immigration policy.
In all of these contexts, the risk of violations of the prohibition of ill-treatment is the highest due to significant subjective and objective factors, the ability of victims to complain is often limited in practice, and thus responding to complaints, while mandatory, is not sufficient and requires significant preventive efforts, which in turn lead to the development of a body of recommendations and standards aimed at reducing the risk of torture and other ill-treatment.
In addition, in its judgments, the European Court of Human Rights has repeatedly concluded that the state’s obligations arising from the prohibition of torture and other ill-treatment can also be violated outside the context of non-custodial settings – and each time, these cases involved the most serious violations of human rights that caused significant suffering, such as domestic violence or sexual crimes.
The number of specific issues related to the prohibition of ill-treatment is massive – and all of them require a great deal of knowledge and professionalism for all those involved in combating these phenomena.
Foreword of Judge of the European Court of Human Rights Dr. Mykola Gnatovskyy to Prohibition of Torture: Case law of the European Court of Human Rights, Standards and Practices of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture. Tübingen – Odessa, 2023. 604 p.
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