The Christian Legal Centre, a sister organisation of the Christian Concern for Our Nation, has questioned the plans to relax the laws on assisted suicide after the most senior Judge of the land failed to show impartiality in a landmark case.
The Crown Prosecution Service is planning to publish the policy guidelines on assisted suicide tomorrow, Wednesday, 23 September. It is expected that the guidelines will state that relatives of those who kill themselves will not be prosecuted as long as they do not 'encourage' them and assist only a 'clear and settled intention'.
The guidelines was drawn up after Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, with four other Law Lords, ruled at the end of July this year that the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) must clarify the law on assisted suicide after Debbie Purdy, who has multiple sclerosis, went to the courts seeking assurances that her husband will not be prosecuted if he helps her go to commit suicide.
(See the CCFON report)
At the beginning of this month, Lord Phillips, Britain’s most senior judge, expressed his view in an interview with The Daily Telegraph saying that he felt ‘enormous sympathy’ for terminally ill patients who wanted to end their own lives in assisted suicides.
(See the previous CCFON report)
He said that he sympathised with people facing a ‘quite hideous termination of their life’ as a result of ‘horrible diseases’ who wanted to avoid a prolonged death and spare their relatives pain or distress.
The Christian Legal Centre says that these remarks showed that Lord Phillips had allowed his personal views to colour his judgement in the Purdy case – which overturned two early decisions by the Court of Appeal and the High Court – as the country’s senior Law Lord.
The legal centre is now calling for the Purdy case to be reviewed by Britain’s new Supreme Court, of which Lord Phillips is president, and is threatening to take the case to the European Court of Human Rights.
Andrea Williams, Director of The Christian Legal Centre, said:
'It is inappropriate for a judge to participate in a case in which he has strong views. It [the interview] raises serious questions over impartiality with regard to Lord Phillips.
'Justice must be seen to be done. He [Lord Phillips] should be showing a clear lack of impartiality. These are fundamental issues that affect life. They are a matter of life and death.’
In a letter to Keir Starmer, the Director of Public Prosecutions, the legal centre said:
‘In the light of Lord Phillips’s reported statements we are concerned that the Judgment delivered by him on 30th July may have involved actual or apparent bias, having been coloured by his personal view of the issue underlying Ms Purdy’s Appeal, namely, assisted suicide.
‘We therefore propose, as a matter of urgency, to seek legal opinion as to the integrity of the Judgment and as to whether an Appeal against it might be made to the European Court of Human Rights under the terms of Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
‘We have noted reports that you plan to publicise draft guidelines on prosecution policy during September. As it is now possible that an Appeal will be made to the ECHR against the Judgment, I am writing to ask that you should postpone the issue of draft guidelines until we have had an opportunity to examine the 30th July Judgment, on which the justification for those guidelines rests, in the light of legal opinion. We feel that such a postponement would be preferable to seeking judicial review of a decision to issue draft guidelines where notice of a possible Appeal against the Judgment has been given.’
A Crown Prosecution Service spokesman said: ‘We have received some correspondence in relation to the publication of the guidance and we will be respond in due course.’
A United Kingdom Supreme Court spokesman said:
‘Lord Phillips has not called for a change in the law. In an interview he gave after the judgment was handed down he simply expressed sympathy with anyone who was considering ending their life because they had a terminal illness. He made it clear that this was his personal view.’