Moral Rights And Human Rights Case: Pretty V The United Kingdom

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Question 1

There is a big problem nowadays that all countries, regardless of religion, culture or governmental system, are facing, and that is human rights. Human rights are moral principals that set out certain standards of human behaviour and are regularly protected as legal rights in national and international law.

Moral rights and legal rights differ in a way that moral rights are universal, everyone has them regardless where they live, or what sort of society they live in, they are equal in that they apply to everyone regardless of their age, gender etc., they are inalienable, they cannot be given up or taken away and they are natural in that they exist by virtue of our humanity. In contrast to moral rights legal rights are particular, …show more content…

An example of one of the most important cases would be Pretty v the United Kingdom [2002] where Diane Pretty was suffering from motor neurone disease, a degenerative disease affecting the muscles, for which there was no cure. Due to this she wanted to commit suicide, but she was prevented by her disease from taking such a step without assistance. It is however a crime to assist another to commit suicide under English law. She took her case to European Court of Human rights on the bases that it was for the individual to choose whether to live and that the right to die was the corollary of the right to live and also protected, so the United Kingdom would have to adapt its legislation accordingly. She also sought an undertaking that her husband would not be prosecuted if he assisted her to commit suicide. The Court found no violations of Article 2 (right to life), Article 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment), Article 8 (right to respect for private life), Article 9 (freedom of thought) and Article 14 (prohibition of

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