Disability activist challenges UK assisted suicide ruling in last hours

From The Telegraph in the UK:

Alison Davis claims that a legal ruling that forced the change was unsound, alleging the “apparent bias” of one of the judges, Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers (pictured), now the Supreme Court’s president, who later expressed strong personal views on the subject in an interview with The Daily Telegraph.

In July, Lord Phillips, with four other Law Lords, supported a call to clarify the law on assisted suicide from Debbie Purdy, a multiple sclerosis sufferer. The ruling forced the CPS to draw up new prosecution guidelines.

The deadline to challenge the Purdy ruling was Dec. 7 and in legal papers Miss Davis claims that Lord Phillips’ personal sympathy played a role in the Purdy ruling, on the basis of the interview he gave to The Daily Telegraph several weeks later.

As a result of the ruling, which overturned two earlier decisions by more junior courts, Keir Starmer, the Director of Public Prosecutions, is proposing a new "tick box" approach for prosecutors to decide whether to prosecute someone for assisted suicide.

Campaigners have said that this change could make it easier for those who are disabled to be coerced into killing themselves by carers, friends or members of the family.

In the interview, which is quoted in the application papers that will be lodged with the Supreme Court today, Lord Phillips expressed “enormous sympathy” for terminally ill patients who wanted to end their own lives in assisted suicides.

Lord Phillips said: “I have enormous sympathy with anyone who finds themselves facing a quite hideous termination of their life as a result of one of these horrible diseases, in deciding they would prefer to end their life more swiftly and avoid that death as well as avoiding the pain and distress that might cause their relatives.”

The legal challenge alleges that the Purdy ruling is "vitiated by the principle of apparent bias", and therefore "the decision of the former House of Lords is 'unconstitutional' and usurps the powers of Parliament".

It further calls for "a full Supreme Court is convened to reconsider and hear fresh argument on the case of Purdy".

The legal papers argue that “the expression of the private 'political’ view of Lord Phillips in The Daily Telegraph after the judgement clearly raises a question in the minds of reasonable and informed people of apparent bias”.

In a letter to Keir Starmer, the Director of Public Prosecutions, wheelchair-bound Miss Davis, who suffers from spina bifida, hydrocephalus, emphysema, osteoporosis and arthritis, said the proposed changes were “fatally discriminatory”.

Miss Davis wrote: “The DPP’s guidelines are unfair, unjust, and fatally discriminatory against suffering people, who deserve the same presumption in favour of life as any able bodied person would automatically receive. They have no place in a civilised society.”

Andrea Williams, Director of Christian Legal Centre which is backing Miss Davis's legal challenge, said: “This is an extraordinary action for extraordinary times.

"Disabled people have always had the protection of the law and disabled people are now appealing to the highest court in the land in an attempt to retain this protection.”

The centre has claimed a precedent was set when a Lords judgment on whether the late Gen Augusto Pinochet of Chile was immune from prosecution was set aside because Lord Hoffman, one of the law lords, had links to Amnesty International.

Peter Saunders, Director of Care Not Killing Alliance added: "The Law Lords’ decision in July, overturning earlier Judgments in the High Court and the Court of Appeal, was an unusual one to say the least - that those contemplating breaking the criminal law in this area should be advised how far they might go without risking prosecution.

"Having seen the prosecution guidelines that have been issued in response by the Crown Prosecution Service - and in particular their suggestion that helping a severely disabled person to commit suicide might be regarded more leniently than helping someone else to kill themselves - we are not surprised to hear that the Law Lords’ decision is now being questioned.

"It is not difficult to see why many disabled and seriously ill people should now perceive that they are not to be afforded the same protection that the law gives to the rest of us.

"We look to the Supreme Court to consider this case very carefully and to reflect on the potentially serious consequences of the Law Lords’ Judgment."

After the Telegraph interview, a spokesman defended Lord Phillips’ remarks and said he was not calling for a change in the law.

The spokesman said: “Lord Phillips has not called for a change in the law. He simply expressed sympathy with anyone considering ending their life because they had a terminal illness. He made it clear that this was his personal view.”

The Law Lords, led by Lord Phillips, had required Mr Starmer “to prepare an offence-specific policy identifying the facts and circumstances which he will take into account in deciding whether or not to consent to a prosecution”.