Tag: Assisted suicide
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Stevie Martin: Differentiation in dying: Can limiting assisted suicide to the terminally ill be justified?
With the second reading of Kim Leadbeater’s Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill fast approaching, debate persists as to whether limiting eligibility to terminally ill adults could be successfully challenged as discriminatory under Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) before the domestic courts and/or the European Court of Human Rights…
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Stevie Martin: The Decriminalisation and Regulation of Assisted Suicide in England and Wales: Acknowledging and Addressing the Slippery Slope Argument
The introduction of Kim Leadbeater’s Private Member’s Bill which will, if enacted, legalise assisted suicide for ‘Terminally Ill Adults’ in England and Wales has, unsurprisingly, drawn significant commentary from many quarters, including some legal academics and practitioners. This is despite the fact that, as yet, Leadbeater’s Bill has not been published. Debates on assisted dying…
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Philip Murray: Looking down the slippery slope: Can assisted suicide be restricted to the terminally ill?
Kim Leadbeater has recently introduced a Private Member’s Bill in the House of Commons which seeks to legalise assisted suicide for the terminally ill. Despite its second reading being scheduled for 29 November, the text of the Bill is, somewhat remarkably given its significance, still to be published. Yet the outline of Leadbeater’s proposals has…
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Grégoire Webber: The remaking of the Constitution of Canada
Editors’ note: The blog has a number of country correspondents who report from time to time on matters of interest to a UK audience. Prof Webber is the blog’s Canada correspondent. Over the past year, Canada has undertaken an important remaking of its constitution. It has (1) given constitutional status to an uncertain number of…
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Robert Leckey: Fundamental Rights, Physician-Assisted Death and the Court’s Institutional Role: A Comment on Carter v. Canada (Attorney General)
On 6 February 2015, the Supreme Court of Canada reversed its ruling on assisted suicide. In 1993, in a five-four decision, the Court had ruled that the federal government’s blanket ban on assisted suicide complied with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In Carter v. Canada (Attorney General), the Court, now ruling 9–0, held that…
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Leah Grolman and Greg Weeks: Guidelines and Assisted Suicide: an Australian Perspective
The morally and politically charged area of assisted suicide has many of the hallmarks of an insoluble problem. This has not prevented courts in some jurisdictions considering how they might ‘legalise’ assisted suicide without really legalising it. In doing so, they have raised manifold challenges in the minds of administrative and constitutional lawyers, including, in…
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Richard Ekins: Defying the law: a reply to Daly
I’m grateful to Paul Daly for bringing to my attention the Irish High Court’s Fleming decision and the Ménard Report. However, I think he is wrong to censure the former (at least, as harshly as he does) and to laud the latter. Should the High Court have granted the application to order the Director of…
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Paul Daly: Death, Democracy and Delegation
Decisions on when to end one’s life are unquestionably of the greatest intimacy. Yet there is a clear public interest in ensuring that these decisions are carefully regulated to ensure the safety of the vulnerable. Accordingly, quite what legal framework should govern end-of-life-decisions — if, indeed, there should be any framework at all — is…
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Bradley W. Miller: Assisted Suicide and Judicial Review
What considerations can justify a court overturning a recent constitutional precedent? This constitutional perennial is once again in the foreground as a Canadian court is asked to revisit a 1993 judgment (R. v. Rodriguez, [1993] 3 SCR 519)) upholding the constitutionality of the criminal prohibition of assisted suicide. The sole justice from that panel remaining…