Has the UK reached a tipping point on assisted suicide?
by Clark Hobson, BioEdge:
Could the United Kingdom soon see its blanket ban on assisted suicide (under section 2(1) Suicide Act 1961) overturned?
Noel Conway is 67 years old. He suffers from motor neurone disease, and is estimated to have 12 months to live. Mr Conway has instructed lawyers at Irwin Mitchell to seek judicial review against the Ministry of Justice in the High Court, arguing that assisted suicide should be legally permissible, subject to satisfying a series of strict criteria.
Mr Conway’s case is noteworthy for the vivid portrayal of the progress of his condition, and the accompanying fears of becoming ‘entombed in his own body’. The legal importance of Mr Conway’s case lies in the fact that it likely has the greatest chances of long-term success in overturning the law before the UK courts. A range of factors argue for Mr Conway’s position, and support for reform is mounting.
The highest-profile and most recent legal case on assisted suicide in the United Kingdom is Nicklinson v Ministry of Justice. In the Supreme Court Jane Nicklinson, Tony’s Nicklinson wife, and Paul Lamb argued Article 8(1) of the European Convention of Human Rights, the right to respect for private and family life, was disproportionately infringed by the UK’s assisted suicide blanket-ban. By a 7:2 majority, the appeal was dismissed, on the basis that any ‘decriminalisation should be left to Parliament, as it is a controversial, difficult and sensitive moral and politico-social issue’ ([84]).
But that does not tell the whole story. Of greater interest is how a majority of justices found that Parliament was not the only forum which could scrutinise the proportionality of the Suicide Act: ‘even under [the UK] constitutional settlement, which acknowledges parliamentary supremacy and has no written constitution, it is, in principle, open to a domestic court to consider whether section 2 infringes article 8’ ([76]).
Perhaps most vital for Mr Conway’s case though is the clear, repeated insistence that Parliament must address the assisted suicide ban. If it did not do so appropriately, in suitable circumstances the Supreme Court would be ready to declare the law incompatible with Article 8(1) ECHR. Lord Neuberger, in effect giving the leading judgment, states:
‘Parliament now has the opportunity to address the issue of whether section 2 should be relaxed or modified, and if so how, in the knowledge that, if it is not satisfactorily addressed, there is a real prospect that a further, and successful, application for a declaration of incompatibility may be made’ ([118], emphasis added).
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