Torture in a Rule of Law State – Dasner Case in Germany Can state authorities exceptionally be allowed to obtain statement by force

Abstract

State organs are prohibited to harass (torture) people even if this is the only way to secure life of the innocent. Those who promote harassment in special circumstances tend to overlook the fact that international legal instruments explicitly prohibit all conceivable exceptions from prohibition of harassment and that the concept of harassment is determined in several conventions and therefore cannot be narrowed in the case of need. However, even if exceptions to harassment were explicitly prohibited, there are good reasons which speak in favor of the stance that the prohibition of harassment is substantively – as a general concept – conceivable only if it is absolute. In practice, it is impossible to set boundaries to harassment – or there will be no harassment, or the chain will be taken off and it will exist in its unforeseeable scope.