Appeal judges dismiss Conway bid
from Care Not Killing:
Three senior Court of Appeal judges have upheld the Divisional Court’s October 2017 judgment in the case of Mr Noel Conway, which found that the 1961 Suicide Act (amended 2009) was not incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights (enshrined in UK law as the 1998 Human Rights Act). The case was brought against the Secretary of State for Justice, with Care Not Killing, Not Dead Yet UK and Humanists UK (formerly the British Humanist Association) intervening.
Sir Terence Etherton (Master of the Rolls), Sir Brian Leveson (President of the Queen’s Bench Division) and Lady Justice King heard the appeal in May of this year. Counsel for Mr Conway had secured permission to appeal on seven grounds, but the Court of Appeal has delivered a clear repudiation of these:
‘The Divisional Court concluded… that the prohibition in section 2 of the 1961 Act achieves a fair balance between the interests of the wider community and the interests of people in the position of Mr Conway… we do not consider that the approach or those conclusions of the Divisional Court can be faulted… [and so] we dismiss both the appeal and the respondent’s notice.’ (206-208)
Substantial reference was made in the course of the original hearing to expert evidence on palliative care put forward by CNK, and this is borne out in the text of the judgment, with references both to our witness Professor George and to CNK’s principal arguments. CNK previously intervened at the High Court, and has also intervened in the case of ‘Y’ at the Supreme Court and in Nicklinson, Lamb and Martin at the Court of Appeal and Supreme Court.
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