In an intriguing explanation of the structure and interpretation of the proposed wording, an ICJP summary of its 98-page document notes that "not even the right to life is absolute".
In full, the relevant section says that "each right should be understood in a positive sense first, as something which people should enjoy as a matter of course. RRC (Re-Righting the Constitution) emphasises that there is no absolute, unqualified entitlement to the rights in question. Not even the right to life is absolute and in any case new rights would have to be interpreted and balanced with reference to existing ones."
The document itself says: "To state an obligation on the part of the State to respect a right does not mean that an individual can expect an absolute, unqualified entitlement to, or exercise of, that right. Even as fundamental a right as that to life, already recognised in the Constitution, does not guarantee freedom from death by illness or accident, by murder, negligence or war.
"And it still leaves open the difficult problem of balancing one person's right to life against that of others (in pregnancy, emergencies, or allocation of scarce medical resources, for instance.) In resource terms the constitutional right to life does not confer on the individual an entitlement to unlimited medical resources or expenditure."
