NEW RULES to govern whether those who help terminally ill loved ones to die should be prosecuted are to come into immediate force in the United Kingdom, following a decision by the director of public prosecutions (DPP).
Under the code, relatives or friends who are involved in assisted suicide might not be sent for trial if they do not stand to benefit from a deceased’s estate or if they could prove that they were acting out of compassion.
Equally, the DPP will take into account the dying wishes of the deceased, and whether they were competent enough to make the decision to end their lives, and had shown a “clear and settled” wish to make such a decision.
Particular attention, said the DPP, Ken Starmer, would be paid to the age of the deceased, especially if they were under 18; whether they had a mental illness; or if there was evidence that there was no possibility of recovery.
Mr Starmer published the rules after Bradford multiple sclerosis sufferer Debbie Purdy won a case in the House of Lords after she had demanded to know the circumstances in which her husband would be prosecuted if he helped her travel abroad to die.
Saying that assisted suicide remained a crime, Mr Starmer said the rules would “clarify” the public interest choices facing prosecutors deciding whether or not to launch criminal proceedings in such cases. “There are also no guarantees against prosecution and it is my job to ensure that the most vulnerable people are protected while at the same time giving enough information to those people, like Ms Purdy, who want to be able to make informed decisions about what actions they may choose to take,” he said.
The rules come into effect immediately in England and Wales. Scotland does not specifically outlaw assisted suicide, but someone helping another to die could be charged with murder. A Bill is due before the Scottish parliament legalising assisted suicide.
Meanwhile, consultation guidelines about the new rules were published simultaneously in Belfast yesterday. The interim guidelines, which set out “public interest factors” for and against prosecution in cases of assisted suicide, were designed to address a “difficult, highly complex and sensitive ethical issue”, said the North’s Director of Public Prosecutions Sir Alasdair Fraser, who is head the Public Prosecution Service.
Sir Alasdair said that the guidelines did not change the Criminal Justice (Northern Ireland) Act 1966, which makes assisted suicide a criminal offence, but were about more clearly defining how the law should be applied. Currently a person who “aids, abets, counsels, procures the suicide of another or an attempt by another to commit suicide” is guilty of the offence of assisted suicide and can face a term of up to 14 years’ imprisonment.
He said the interim guidelines were in essence the same as those published yesterday in England and Wales. “It’s not a mathematical subject. It’s a balancing act which is probably one of the hardest parts of being a prosecutor,” said Sir Alasdair.
Sir Alasdair stressed that it was never a rule that prosecution automatically followed from suspected cases of assisted suicide in Northern Ireland. He added that in his 20 years in the post he never had to deal with a case.
Police must investigate all cases of assisted suicide but it is up to the prosecution services to decide whether or not prosecutions should follow.
The document outlines 13 factors against prosecution and 16 for prosecution. The first three factors against prosecution are that the “victim had a clear, settled and informed wish to commit suicide”, that he or she “indicated unequivocally” the wish to commit suicide, and that the “victim asked personally on his or her own initiative for the assistance” of the assisted suicide “suspect”.
The Catholic Church, in its initial response to the guidelines, said it “holds firmly to the belief that since all human life is from God no person has a right to deliberately end a human life, whether their own or that of another”.
“It is extremely dangerous in the context of legislation to suggest that one person is not legally held accountable for their actions simply because they are responding sincerely to the express wishes of another person. Any person who acts to end the life of another, however well intentioned that action might be, must accept personal responsibility for that action,” it added.