Legal aid—Inquest

The duty to investigate a death under Art 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights applied in a wide range of circumstances in which there was an obligation to provide a legal system by which any citizen might access an open and independent investigation of the circumstances of a death.

The system in England and Wales would always satisfy the procedural investigation obligation. Second, there was a duty proactively to conduct an effective investigation into the circumstances of a death in a much narrower range of circumstances where the evidence suggested a possible breach of the state’s substantive duty to protect the life of those in its direct care (the enhanced investigation).

It was not possible to say that an allegation of individual negligence would never engage Art 2. The person best placed to decide whether Art 2 was engaged was the coroner who was to conduct the investigation. The procedural duty to investigate