Self-Defence, Domestic Violence and the State

The law of self-defence regulates relations between citizens as well as between citizens and the State. Historically, the common law was reluctant to allow individuals to act in self-defence, preserving lawful force to be exercised by the State and only in very limited circumstances by individuals.

Imminence functioned as a key device ensuring that the use of force in self-defence did not inappropriately infringe the State’s monopoly on violence. During the twentieth century, imminence became subsumed under the broader standard of reasonable necessity. Further, specific re-consideration of the role of imminence occurred in cases where victims of chronic domestic violence killed their abusive partners in non-confrontational circumstances and claimed to have acted in self-defence. The significant evolution of the common law was supplemented by statutory reform. While the relaxation of considerations of imminence in these circumstances may have benefitted individual accused, it embodies a changed, regressive, relationship between citizen and State. By loosening its monopoly on violence through legitimating acts of self-defence in non-imminent circumstances, the State has effectively abandoned the effective protection of this cohort of accused by acknowledging the necessity of their acts.