Breaking news from the Christian Legal Centre:

Alison Davis is seeking to challenge the House of Lords' ruling on Debbie Purdy's assisted suicide case today in the Supreme Court. The decision was made at the end of July and required the Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer, to publicise his policy on prosecuting cases of assisted suicide. It came in response to the legal challenge by Debbie Purdy, multiple sclerosis sufferer, who wished to ensure that her husband would not face prosecution for helping her to travel to Zurich to commit suicide there. The House of Lords' decision overturned the judgments of the High Court and the Court of Appeal and 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".

The deadline for Alison Davis to challenge the House of Lords' decision is today. Alison Davis's challenge claims that Lord Phillips, senior Law Lord at the time and now President of the Supreme Court was biased in favour of assisted suicide when he and the other four Law Lords made the decision that the law on assisted suicide was "unclear" and required offence-specific guidance for prosecutors concerned with deciding whether to prosecute a suspect for assisting the suicide of another person. Miss Davis's evidence centres on Lord Phillips' comments in The Daily Telegraph on 10th September 2009, in which he expressed "enormous sympathy" for terminally-ill patients who want to commit suicide, but need assistance to do so.

Lord Phillips said in his interview with The Daily Telegraph: "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."

Alison Davis of No Less Human will present a petition arguing that Lord Phillips' personal sympathy invalidates the House of Lords' last decision, in the same way that Lord Hoffman's links to Amnesty International did when he gave a judgment in the case regarding the immunity from prosecution of General Augusto Pinochet of Chile. The legal challenge states that the Purdy ruling is "vitiated by the principle of apparent bias", and that "the decision of the former House of Lords is 'unconstitutional' and usurps the powers of Parliament". It calls for the Supreme Court to be convened "to reconsider and hear fresh argument on the case of Purdy". The argument continues: "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".

Miss Davis, a wheelchair user with spina bifida, hydrocephalus, emphysema, osteoporosis and arthritis, wrote a letter to accompany her case papers. She said: "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."

Campaigners, argue that Lord Phillips' personal sympathy for those who wanted to commit suicide means that the proposed interim prosecution policy should not be finalised. The changes made by the interim policy could make it easier for people to coerce their family members, friends or the people for whom they care into killing themselves.

The Lord Advocate, Elish Angiolini QC, has already indicated that no similar guidance will be issued in Scotland, stating that "The Crown recognises the importance of this issue, but any change in the current law related to homicide is properly a matter for the Scottish Parliament."

Posted on Absolvitor: Scots Law Online.

Labels: criminal law, House of Lords, Law and Ethics, News, Scottish Parliament, UK Supreme Court

The High Court today refused the Christian Legal Centre and CORE permission to judicially review the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority's decision to grant research licences which involves creating animal human hybrids. The main concern in this case was that the rule of law was circumvented by the HFEA's decision to pre-empt Parliament who had not yet decided whether this kind of research should be allowed. CLC had argued that in a civilized society it is vital that no individual or public body is above the rule of law.

Mrs Justice Dobbs ruled that the challenge was not arguable because the HFEA had acted within their powers when granting the licences. She further held that the decision by the HFEA, following their own public consultation, was not irrational because proper consideration had been given to the issues surrounding the grant of the licences.

CORE and CLC argued that under the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 the definition of a human embryo prohibited the creation of animal human hybrids (because they are not human) and that even if they were not prohibited, the licenses were neither necessary nor desirable in light of recent developments with adult stem cell research where the real progress in finding cures to serious illnesses is being made.

During the course of her Judgment, Mrs Justice Dobbs said it was possible for a human animal hybrid to be defined under section 1 of the 1990 Act as a human embryo and what is human depends on the facts understood by scientific knowledge at the time - a statement described by the CLC as "chilling" and showing "little regard for the special status and dignity of what it means to be human".

Labels: Law and Ethics, News

Nicola Sturgeon MSP, the Health Secretary, has been reported as saying she was "not persuaded" that assisted suicide should be made legal, after independent MSP Margo MacDonald said she hoped to bring legislation on the subject before Holyrood next year.

Ms. Sturgeon (with whom I once worked) said that she was not sure safeguards could be put in place to prevent the system from being abused. However, she is quite comfortable (as I understand it) to see organs harvested from those who haven't got round to "opting out" (i.e. declaring officially that you'd like to hang onto your organs after you're dead).

Labels: Law and Ethics, News, Scottish Government, Scottish Parliament

Patrick Layden QC will be appointed as Commissioner to the Scottish Law Commission, with effect from September 1, 2008. Mr Layden replaces Professor Gerry Maher, whose appointment ends on August 31, 2008.

Also, we hear news from Milne Media that one Doreen Graham of the Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, is to be appointed as Head of Communications with the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission.

Perhaps her press releases will be drafted with a view to preventing cruelty to "legal eagles"?

Labels: Law and Ethics, News

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) has recently granted a licence to the Clinical Sciences Research Institute, University of Warwick, which permits the creation of human-pig hybrid embryos for research purposes.

This licence is purportedly enacted under the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990. The Christian Legal Centre, together with Comment on Reproductive Ethics, has already filed legal papers for a Judicial Review over the decisions earlier this year by the HFEA to grant licences to Newcastle University and Kings College London for their research into degenerative diseases using animal-human hybrids.

While Parliament has recently passed the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill that allows for the granting of licences for human-pig hybrid embryo research, the 1990 Act did not.

Professor Justin St. John, the leading researcher on this project at the University of Warwick stated "This new licence allows us to attempt to make human pig clones to produce embryonic stem cells."

The third reading of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill is expected to take place in Parliament as early as next week.

Christian Concern for our Nation (CCFON) have produced an Information and Action Pack on this issue.

Labels: Law and Ethics, News