Reflecting the Juridical Nature of Personal Autonomy within the Jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights
Reflecting the Juridical Nature of Personal Autonomy within the Jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights

Summary/Abstract: At the European level, the values of human rights were reafirmed and consolidated by means of the Lisbon Treaty, the latter establishing the premises of achieving a real juridical convergence between the system of human rights protection that was enabled under the auspices of the European Union and the juridical system of human rights protection created by the Council of Europe. Art. 6 of the consolidated version of the Treaty of Lisbon establishes the juridical relations between the two European systems of human rights protection, by introducing in this matter, two essential principles: (1) the European Union adheres to the European Convention of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms; (2) fundamental rights, as they are guaranteed by means of the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and as they spring from the constitutional traditions that are commune to all member States, represent general principles of the law of the Union. Taking into consideration the previously evoked principles, the scientific objective of our paper resides in presenting the peculiarities of the juridical value of personal autonomy and placing it within some possible analytical patterns oriented towards reflecting the connection between personal autonomy and the right to life, respectively, the right of the individual to decide with regard to his own destiny. We have undertaken our research having the conscience that the implications that personal autonomy brings may be extended upon the whole content of the European Convention taking into consideration the fact that personal autonomy synthesizes the democratical-individualist conception concerning human rights, being the corollary of liberty and human dignity. The issues advanced hereinafter are manifold: (1) identifying the peculiarities of the Western conception upon human rights (the classical form of individualism or a peculiar form of individualism translated through the respect towards the norms of the community conjugated with the respect for human rights); (2) identifying the peculiarities of personal autonomy – as a secondary juridical value for the rights contained in the European Convention; (3) establishing the application of personal autonomy as a juridical argument in exerting the content of the right to life and of the right to death.

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