A legal study of the right to life in the European Convention on Human Rights and Islam

The right to Ii fe is provided by the European Convention n Human rights. The Convention has also offered provisions of how this right must be protected. This has entailed - at stages in a gradual move - the abolishment of the death penalty. Next to the death penalty, abortion, euthanasia and death occurring as a result of the excessive use of force are predominantly the main right to life issues. The European Court of Human rights by offering opinions and judgments encompassing its interpretations on these issues has generated the Conventionbased jurisprudence ofthe right to life. On the other hand this is a human rights regional system that is obliged to consider other legal systems because of the influence of those systems both inside its jurisdiction and outside it. Islamic law or Shariah is a major legal system that commands a great deal of respect and compliance in and around the geographical territories of the Council of Europe and thus the Convention. Shariah is a legal system based on religion. It offers a comprehensive code of law to include criminal, family and commercial laws. Shariah - inter alia - contains laws with life and right to life as their concern. These laws are sporadically spread and to be found in areas such criminal law and family law as well the Islamic international law. Shariah differs from the Convention in many ways. These differ in their historical origination, development and operational modes as well as their philosophy and also details oflaw. They also differ in their level of attachment to jurisprudential dogmas as a direct result of one being a pure religious law and other being a secular law with the centricity of human mind. Whereas the death penalty is abolished by the Convention, it is theologically endorsed and upheld by Shariah. Intermittent discussions of abolishment in Shariah are chiefly focused on moderating the enforcement and not the divine law. However in many areas including aspects of protection against the excessive use of force as well as beginning and end of life issues the contrast is not as sharp and similarities could be discerned. Likewise it can be established that areas in legal philosophy in both systems may bear resemblances both as concepts and their legal results; notions such as "the margin of appreciation" in the Convention's jurisprudence and' Urfin Shariah's principles of legal interpretation