Legal Challenge To Assisted Suicide Ban Lost

Campaigners have lost their latest legal challenge at the Supreme Court over the "right to die" for disabled people.

Jane Nicklinson, the widow of "locked-in syndrome" sufferer Tony Nicklinson, brought the case along with paralysed former builder Paul Lamb and another disabled man, known only as Martin, who want to make it legal for doctors to help their patients end their lives.

Justices at the Supreme Court were ruling on whether the current ban, set out in the 1961 Suicide Act, is incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights.

They ruled against Mrs Nicklinson and Mr Lamb by a seven-to-two majority, although five of them said they had the power to declare that a ban on assisted suicide breaches the right to private and family life.

Mrs Nicklinson, whose husband started a campaign to change the law before his death in 2012, aged 58, said the ruling felt, in part, like a victory.

"This is something Tony started and it's very, very important to me," she said.

"I feel very strongly (that people should have the right to die) and I'll take this as far as I can."

Speaking through a computer he controls with his sight, Martin said he welcomed the judgment, but added: "This whole process has been excruciating, slow and tedious."

Saimo Chahal, the solicitor representing Mrs Nicklinson and Mr Lamb, said: "Parliament must now review the law and the ban on assisted suicide to take account of people ... who have made a clear and settled decision to end their lives.

"It's been charged with grappling with the issue and the Supreme Court has said that if it doesn't, they'll consider making a declaration of incompatibility next time round."

Disability rights campaigner Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson is among those who called for the law on assisted suicide to remain unchanged.

However, Sarah Wootton, chief executive of the charity Dignity in Dying, said: "The Suicide Act is now over 50 years old and is out of touch with the problems facing dying Britons in the 21st century.

"Public opinion is resolutely in favour of change and now the Supreme Court has clearly indicated that it is only a matter of time before the law is reformed."