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R (o n behalf of Diane Pretty) v. Director of Public Prosecutions [2001] UKHL 61
Case heard in the House of Lords on the 29th November 2001 by Lord Bingham of Cornhill, Lord Steyn, Lord Hope of Craighead, Lord Hobhouse of Wood-borough and Lord Scott of Foscote.
The unfortunate case of Diane Pretty has raised many issues, namely whether there is such a thing as a Human Right to die and if assisted suicide should be legal in cases of terminal illness. Diane Pretty suffered from the fatal incurable degenerative illness motor neurone disease and had no hope of recovery. ... Diane feared the sort of death which this disease could possibly cause such as suffocation and wished to choose instead to die with dignity and through suicide with the help of her husband Brian Pretty. Diane and her husband wanted to ensure first however that Brian would not face up to 14 years imprisonment under section 2 of the Suicide Act 1961 which states that aiding and abetting a suicide is illegal. The Director of Public Prosecutions had declined to grant an indemnity against the prosecution of Diane’s husband and an application for judicial review of this decision also failed at the Queen’s Bench Divisional Court. Diane claimed that section 2 of the Suicide act is, by preventing her husband from aiding her suicide without the risk of prosecution, incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights of 1950. ... This appeal also was dismissed and Diane died 11th May 2002.
Diane claimed that her rights under articles 2, 3, 8 and 14 had been infringed. ... In Diane’s case it was impossible to carry this out herself and she therefore needed assistance in making her choice to die. The lords however decided that the protection of life was of utmost importance and saw it as too large a step between the taking of ones own life and the ‘acceptance of the assertion that the state has a duty to recognise a right for Mrs Pretty to be assisted to take her own life’ (per Lord Bingham). ... Mrs Pretty claimed that the state must, as well as not inflicting such treatment, should also take positive action to prevent it. ... It was held however that the article refers to a positive intentional form of treatment by the state and that failing to allow Mrs Pretty’s husband to end her suffering did not amount to inhuman or degrading treatment. ... Mrs Pretty’s argument was that this also gave a right to self-determination in when and how to die which was interfered with by section 2(1) of the Suicide Act by not taking into account certain cases. ...
-Mrs Pretty used the argument that wishing and consenting to her own death should absolve her husband from prosecution under criminal law. ... It could still be argued that Dianne Pretty simply could not do something that others can because of her illness which would amount to discrimination.
Approximate Word count = 2475
Approximate Pages = 9.9
(250 words per page double spaced)
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