
Lord Neuberger, by his own admission, has ‘for many years been interested in the topic of assisted dying’. Liberalising the law on assisted dying is a question he has often considered—as a law lord in R (on the application of Purdy) v DPP [2009] UKHL 45, [2009] 4 All ER 1147, and in the Supreme Court in R (on the application of Nicklinson) v Ministry of Justice [2014] UKSC 38, [2014] 3 All ER 843. When we met on a late-June morning, a few days after the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill passed its third reading in the House of Commons, it was an issue I was keen to raise.
Liberalising the law
‘For a long time, I’ve been in favour of liberalising the law,’ Lord Neuberger said. ‘I don’t go to the House of Lords very often, but [in 2021] there was a motion about