EXTREME NECESSITY IN THE LIGHT OF EUROPEAN VALUES: THEORETICAL AND LEGAL ASPECT

Abstract

The article deals with the problematic aspect of conception of boundaries of extreme necessity, namely the classification of danger prevention that menaces the life of a person (several people), by means of deprivation of life of the other person (people). Thematics is covered taking into account the modern state of development, first of all of the European community, decisions of European Court of Human Rights in cases related to the provision of the right to life. Vagueness of the Criminal Code of Ukraine providing for the extreme necessity that is the cause of the fact that the number of scientists and practicing lawyers claim about the possibility of exercise of the institute of extreme necessity while deciding the matter of classification of the act of a person that deprives another person of his life in order to save the life of a person / other people is noted. The author believes that such conception of extreme necessity is fallacious and distorting the idea of morality. Every person and the life of the every person are of the absolute value. The life of a person is a unique phenomenon and cannot be calculated in the quantitative measurement. That is why it is erroneously to say that it is better to deprive one person of his life rescuing the lives of several people (or even millions of people). It is required to put ourselves in the place of that one person and honestly answer the question of the possibility of application of extreme necessity. Transformation of conception of the right to life within the Europe is stated in the article. The second sentence of the item 1 of the article 2 of Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms was adopted nearly 40 years ago for exceptional historical conditions, shortly after the world war two. Since it seems as such that allows exercising legal killing under certain conditions at peaceful time, it does not reflect current situation, and this provision is nowadays disclaimed by the development of legal awareness and practice. Such punishment does not meet the modern state of the European civilization. Legal killing is banned by the Protocol №13 to this Convention. The attention is paid to that that morality provides for achieving aims with the help of moral means, and not by fair means or foul, and moreover by means of the human life. If anyone decides to put his life in order to save the life of the other people – it is his personal choice and manifestation of freedom, but no one can render such a choice for him. If we allow inflicting human life with impunity in order to save the life of another person, it almost always results in massacre, particularly to put them “on conveyer” in the sphere of medicine, there would be references to the necessity to save other life or lives in the very such case. That is why in order to avoid such arbitrariness it is unlawful to consider as extreme necessity rescuing one or several human lives on account of death of another person. It is inferred that a human life is a unique phenomenon, belongs to the absolute values and therefore cannot be “political currency” and be calculated and compared while deciding the issue of being in the state of extreme necessity.