Euro judges reject woman’s right-to-die plea
Terminally-ill Diane Pretty has today lost her right-to-die case at the European Court of Human Rights.
Mrs Pretty, 43, wants her husband Brian to be allowed to help her commit suicide without fear of prosecution.
The European court ruling was her last hope of a legal seal of approval to what she sees as her right to die with dignity.
Mrs Pretty, who lives in Luton, Beds, is dying of motor neurone disease and her life expectancy is described as ‘‘very poor’’.
Rather than endure the final stages of a distressing and undignified illness, the mother-of-two wants to die when she wants to - and she needs the help of husband.
Suicide is not a crime in England, but assisting a suicide is, and Mrs Pretty has been battling in vain for a guarantee that Brian will not be prosecuted.
She turned to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg when Britain’s Director of Public Prosecutions refused to promise immunity for Brian, and subsequent appeals were rejected.
Despite being paralysed from the neck down Mrs Pretty travelled with her husband by ambulance from her home to Strasbourg last month to be present for the half-day case in front of the Human Rights judges.
She heard her lawyer argue that denying her the right to an assisted death when she chooses is a breach of the Human Rights Convention, which outlaws ‘‘inhuman or degrading treatment’’.
A lawyer for the government said the Convention, to which Britain is a signatory, safeguards against inhuman or degrading treatment imposed by others, but cannot be regarded as referring to naturally occurring disease.
He said the Convention does not lay down rules on whether assisted suicide is either legal or criminal that was a matter for national governments and UK domestic law does not allow one person to intervene deliberately to bring about another person’s death.
Mrs Pretty’s lawyer also claimed that the Convention’s guarantee of a ‘‘right to life’’ implies also a right to die something the Government vehemently rejected.
The speed of the verdict - less than six weeks after the hearing - reflects the urgency for the Pretty family.
Normally applicants to the Human Rights Court have to wait months and sometimes years for a result.
Mrs Pretty’s condition was diagnosed in 1999 and has deteriorated rapidly. She now speaks through a voice simulator and has to be fed through a tube to her stomach.
She faces death soon from respiratory failure and pneumonia when her breathing muscles become affected by the disease.
She desperately wants clearance from the judges today, and her husband has said he would not go against his wife’s wishes by assisting her death illegally.
