House of Lords closes with landmark ruling on assisted suicide
The law lords have unanimously ruled in favour of Debbie Purdy’s Art 8 rights, in the very last judgment of the House of Lords before it is replaced by the Supreme Court.
Purdy, who suffers from multiple sclerosis, had asked for the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) to issue an offense-specific policy on whether or not her husband would be prosecuted if he accompanied her to the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland where she hopes to end her life.
The House of Lords overturned the Court of Appeal’s earlier ruling that the DPP was acting lawfully in refusing to do so.
This means the DPP will now set out the circumstances under which someone may be prosecuted for accompanying someone to die abroad. Currently the law says that a person can be imprisoned for up to 14 years for doing so, although no one has been prosecuted.
Purdy’s solicitor, Saimo Chahal, partner at Bindmans, says: “It’s a fantastic victory and all the sweeter for the fact that it is a unanimous decision and the very last judgment of the House of Lords which expands the ambit of Art 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
"It is important that the DPP should now wake up to the need to publish an offence specific policy in this area. I hope that he will go a long way towards indicating that there are very many factors against prosecution in the public interest in cases involving assistance to a person who is mentally capable, where she or he has a terminal illness or incurable disease and decides to have an assisted suicide in a county where it is legal.”
Corinne Slingo, partner at law firm Beachcroft LLP, says: “The decision comes as no surprise from a purely legal analysis of the DPP’s duties, and interpretation of the Suicide Act 1961.
“The Lords were clear that they do not seek to change the law on assisted suicide, but merely to interpret the law, and thus where uncertainty exists, to recommend how best to achieve clarity.”
