Article 4
Human beings are inviolable. Every human being shall be entitled to respect for his life and the integrity of his person. No one may be arbitrarily deprived of this right.
The right to life is foundational and without it, other rights cannot be enforced. In the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights v. Kenya, the African Court held that:
The right to life is the cornerstone on which the realisation of all other rights and freedoms depend. The deprivation of someone’s life amounts to eliminating the very holder of these rights and freedoms.
Further, the Court held that:
Contrary to other human rights instruments, the Charter establishes the link between the right to life and the inviolable nature and integrity of the human being. The Court finds that this formulation reflects the indispensable correlation between these two rights.
From the above, it is clear that the right to life in the Charter is of a dual nature as it simultaneously protects the right to life and the right to the integrity of the human being. This latter right corresponds, in its content, to the right to freedom from cruel and inhuman treatment as enshrined in article 6 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Article 4 is also a unique right as, in theory, it is closely linked with the concept of economic, social and cultural rights, such that in certain cases, a violation of said economic, social, and cultural rights may be held to have led to a violation of article 4.
In the Kenya case above, although the Court found dismissed the applicant’s claim that violations of economic, social, and cultural rights had led to a violation of the right to life, it did not dismiss the potential link entirely. Instead, it held first:
The Court considers that it is necessary to make a distinction between the classical meaning of the right to life and the right to decent existence of a group. Article 4 relates to the physical rather than the existential understanding of the right to life.
Though the holding above may appear to have shut the door to the contemplation of a link between article 4 and economic, social, and cultural rights, the Court, however, left a window of theoretical linkage open.
It further expounding on the theoretical linkage between the two, it held that:
The applicant has not established the causal connection between the evictions of the Ogieks by the Respondent and the deaths alleged to have occurred as a result. the Applicant has not adduced evidence to this effect.
It is clear, therefore, that a complaint that article 4 has been violated on the basis of the violation of economic, social, and cultural rights, is theoretically possible if the applicants can demonstrate a causal link between the deprivation of economic, social, and cultural rights, and the deprivation of the right to life.
