The House of Lords in Purdy forced the DPP to issue offence-specific guidance on assisted suicide, but Jacqueline A Laing argues that the resulting interim policy adopted last September is unconstitutional, discriminatory and illegal. In July 2009, the law lords in R (on the application of Purdy) v Director of Public Prosecutions [2009] All ER (D) 335 required that the DPP publish guidelines for those contemplating assisting another to commit suicide. The DPP produced a consultation paper (23 September 2009) seeking to achieve a public consensus, albeit outside Parliament, on the factors to be taken into account in determining when not to prosecute assisted suicide. Although the consultation exercise is hailed by proponents of legislative change as a democratic, consensus-building and autonomy-enhancing initiative, there is much to suggest that, on the contrary, the guidance is unconstitutional, arbitrary and at odds with human rights law, properly understood.
Doctors will be allowed forcibly to sedate the 55-year-old woman in her home and take her to hospital for surgery. She could be forced to remain on a ward afterwards. The case has sparked an intense ethical and legal debate. Experts questioned whether lawyers and doctors should be able to override the wishes of patients and whether force was ever justified in providing medical care.
A cancer patient who has a phobia of hospitals should be forced to undergo a life-saving operation if necessary, a High Court judge has ruled. Sir Nicholas Wall, sitting at the Court of Protection, ruled doctors could forcibly sedate the 55-year-old woman - referred to as PS. PS lacked the capacity to make decisions about her health, he said. Doctors at her NHS Foundation trust had argued PS would die if her ovaries and fallopian tubes were not removed. Evidence presented to Sir Nicholas, head of the High Court Family Division, said PS was diagnosed with uterine cancer last year.
Although the number of patients seeking treatment elsewhere in the European Union is small,3 this could easily change, especially if people are faced with growing waiting lists or other forms of rationing as the new groups seek to control their budgets. British residents have had the right to obtain treatment in another EU country since 1971.4 Initially, the opportunities were limited mainly to people who fell ill when abroad or, less often, when the NHS agreed that there were good reasons for patients being treated abroad (for example, a citizen of another country resident here returning home to give birth
A patient in Broadmoor Hospital who has spent more than two decades alongside some of Britain's most dangerous criminals has won the right to have a review into his detention heard in public, The Independent has learned. The decision, which is thought to be a legal first, has major implications for the way Mental Health Tribunals function and will open the doors to one of the country's most secretive arbitration systems. The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, has spent 23 years detained under the Mental Health Act, mostly at Broadmoor Hospital, the high-security facility in Berkshire that houses notorious offenders such as the serial killers Peter Sutcliffe and Robert Napper. He was committed in September 1986 after being convicted on two counts of attempted wounding. Doctors had classified the 52-year-old as having a mental illness and psychopathic disorder, but in September 2008 they changed the diagnosis to just a psychopathic disorder.
A serving High Court judge has told the BBC that he is approving commercial surrogacy agreements made by British couples abroad. Laws in the UK are designed to try to prevent such arrangements, but Mr Justice Hedley said his paramount concern was the welfare of the child. The most recent case the judge approved was last month, involving a baby born to a surrogate in the Ukraine. The judge said he was "extremely anxious" about the current situation. In Britain, the judge said, the only payment allowed to a surrogate mother was one of "reasonable expenses". However, he has agreed to give retrospective approval for commercial surrogacy on at least four occasions.
Tom Condliff, who weighs 22st, was not considered fat enough to have a gastric bypass operation by his local Primary Care Trust and both the High Court and the Appeal Court ruled that its decision was lawful. But less than a month after his latest setback, the 62 year-old from Staffordshire has been told that his latest “individual funding request” has been successful on the grounds of his exceptional circumstances and he will now be treated. He told the BBC: “I am very, very pleased about the PCT's decision but at the same time I am rather concerned that I haven't changed since the last time the request for IFR in September last year, was put in. “It was turned down then. So I don't know why it has been granted this time. “I am looking forward to being able to get out of the house and to enjoying myself and having a decent quality of life.”
A woman with "severe" anorexia who wanted to be allowed to die is to be force fed in her "best interests" by order of a High Court judge. Mr Justice Peter Jackson declared that the 32-year-old from Wales, who cannot be identified, did not have the capacity to make decisions for herself. He made public his judgment on Friday after making the ruling last month.
A hospital trust can withhold life-saving treatment from a severely brain-damaged Muslim man if his condition deteriorates, a court has ruled. Doctors argued it would be unfair to resuscitate the patient, known as Mr L, if his condition worsened. His family, of Greater Manchester, said that was against their Muslim faith. At the Court of Protection, Mr Justice Moylan said it would be lawful to withhold treatment as it would not prolong life "in any meaningful way". He added: "It would result in death being characterised by a series of harmful interventions without any realistic prospect of such treatment producing any benefit."
We give Martin permission to appeal against the DPP, although we do not consider that the appeal has any real prospect of success. Our reason for giving permission is the first of the “two other compelling reasons” advanced in the application for permission to appeal. More particularly, we consider that our approach to the role of the DPP and to the decision in Purdy in relation to s2 of the Suicide Act raises questions of sufficient significance to merit consideration by the Court of Appeal.
A lady has cancer of the uterus. She could be cured by a potentially life-saving operation. However, because of other co-morbidities and other factors there is a considerable risk that she could die during the operation or in the post-operative recovery period. She herself lacks the capacity to make an informed decision, but she denies that she has cancer at all and opposes and is resistant to the operation. The medical team at the hospital consider that she would benefit from the operation and would like to perform it. The lady's three adult sons all strongly desire that she should have the operation and feel that the potential benefit outweighs the risk. The Official Solicitor, who acts as her litigation friend, considers, in a phrase, that it is too risky. The question for the court is whether, balancing all the relevant factors, it is in her overall best interests to have the operation or not.
The question in this case is whether a baby known as X should be removed from a ventilator and made the subject only of palliative care. As the evidence is that he will almost certainly die within minutes, or at best hours, of such removal, it will be readily apparent that this case is both tragic and difficult.
Although DJ's condition is in many respects grim, I am not persuaded that treatment would be futile or overly burdensome, or that there is no prospect of recovery. (a) In DJ's case, the treatments in question cannot be said to be futile, based upon the evidence of their effect so far. (b) Nor can they be said to be futile in the sense that they could only return DJ to a quality of life that is not worth living. (c) Although the burdens of treatment are very great indeed, they have to be weighed against the benefits of a continued existence. (d) Nor can it be said that there is no prospect of recovery: recovery does not mean a return to full health, but the resumption of a quality of life that DJ would regard as worthwhile. The references, noted above, to a cure or a return to the former pleasures of life set the standard unduly high.
This application concerns AW, a 57-year-old woman who is in a permanent vegetative state. It is made by the NHS Trust responsible for her care, which seeks a declaration that it is lawful and in her best interests to withdraw active medical treatment, including specifically artificial nutrition and hydration, albeit that this will lead to AW's death. The application is supported by AW's family, by all the medical staff who look after her, by the evidence of the expert witnesses who have reported, and by the Official Solicitor on behalf of AW herself.
These proceedings involve separate but linked applications by two men for leave to apply for orders under s.8 of the Children Act 1989. In each case, the application concerns a child conceived using sperm provided by the man and born to a woman in a civil partnership. As a result of the reforms introduced in the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008, legal parenthood of the children is vested in the mothers and their respective civil partners to the exclusion of the biological fathers who therefore have no right to apply for orders in respect of the children without the leave of the court. I am told that these two cases are the first to come before the court involving an application for leave to apply for s.8 orders from men who, having provided sperm for couples in a civil partnership, are by virtue of the 2008 Act not the legal fathers of the children thereby conceived. It is argued by counsel appearing before me that the outcome of this case has significant public policy...
This is an application by a NHS Trust for declaratory relief in respect of a man (whom I shall call "Dr. A") who is on hunger strike in the Trust hospital. The relief sought by the Trust is in short a declaration : (i) that he lacks capacity to litigate and to make decisions in respect of his nutrition and hydration; and (ii) that it is lawful for the Trust to administer artificial nutrition and hydration.
This is an application made by the NHS Foundation Trust in the Court of Protection for a raft of declarations in relation to a young man, M, who was born on 19th June 1990 and so approaches his 23rd birthday. M was tragically born with a congenital abnormality of the brain called holoprosencephaly ("HPE"). It is common ground that in the period of time since 2010 M's condition has significantly deteriorated. He is now seriously malnourished and, in the view of both the treating physicians and independent experts instructed for the purposes of this hearing, reaching the end of his life. The painful and difficult issues now to be faced by M's family, the medical team that have cared for him so diligently over many years, and ultimately this court, is to what extent should M be treated in Intensive Care or be given cardio-pulmonary resuscitation ("CPR") in the event that there is a further deterioration in his condition. There is no question of M having the capacity himself to make...