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17 January 2025 / Simon Parsons
Issue: 8100 / Categories: Opinion , Health , Human rights , Criminal
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The assisted dying Bill: all for nothing?

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The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill has prompted fierce debate on both sides, but is a Bill needed at all? Simon Parsons considers the existing law & guidance

The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill put forward last year by Kim Leadbeater MP (which is now at committee stage in the House of Commons) states that anyone who wants to end their life can do so if they are over 18 years old and domiciled in England and Wales, are registered with a GP, have the mental capacity to make the choice to end their own life, and have expressed a clear, settled and informed wish to do so, free from coercion or pressure. That person must be expected to die within six months, have made two separate signed and witnessed declarations about their desire to die, and convinced two independent doctors that they are eligible. A High Court judge would have to rule in favour of the assisted suicide. A patient would then have

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MOVERS & SHAKERS

Arc Pensions Law—Matthew Swynnerton

Arc Pensions Law—Matthew Swynnerton

Chair of the Association of Pension Lawyers joins as partner

Ampa Group—Kamal Chauhan

Ampa Group—Kamal Chauhan

Group names Shakespeare Martineau partner head of Sheffield office

Blake Morgan—four promotions

Blake Morgan—four promotions

Four legal directors promoted to partner across UK offices

NEWS

The abolition of assured shorthold tenancies and section 21 evictions marks the beginning of a ‘brave new world’ for England’s rental sector, writes Daniel Bacon of Seddons GSC

Stephen Gold’s latest Civil Way column rounds up a flurry of procedural and regulatory changes reshaping housing, alternative dispute resolution (ADR) and personal injury litigation
Patients are being systematically failed by an NHS complaints regime that is opaque, poorly enforced and often stacked against them, argues Charles Davey of The Barrister Group
A wealthy Russian divorce battle has produced a sharp warning about trying to challenge foreign nuptial agreements in the wrong English court. Writing in NLJ this week, Vanessa Friend and Robert Jackson of Hodge Jones & Allen examine Timokhin v Timokhina, where the High Court enforced Russian judgments arising from a prenuptial agreement despite arguments based on the landmark Radmacher decision
An obscure Victorian tort may be heading for an unexpected revival after a significant Privy Council ruling that could reshape liability for dangerous escapes, according to Richard Buckley, barrister and emeritus professor of law at the University of Reading
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