Pretty v United Kingdom
Article 2 does not confer a right to die, so the refusal to guarantee that a husband would not be prosecuted for assisting his wife's suicide did not breach the Convention.
Facts
Mrs Pretty was suffering from motor neurone disease, which was progressive and incurable, and she was paralysed from the neck down. She wished to end her life at a time of her choosing, but was physically unable to do so without help. She asked the Director of Public Prosecutions for an undertaking that her husband would not be prosecuted for assisting her suicide, which was an offence under section 2 of the Suicide Act 1961. The DPP refused, and the House of Lords dismissed her challenge.
Legal principle
The European Court of Human Rights held that there had been no violation of the Convention. The court said that article 2, which protects the right to life, could not be interpreted as conferring the diametrically opposite right, a right to die. The court accepted that article 8 was engaged, because the way a person chooses to pass the end of her life is part of private life, but held that the blanket ban on assisted suicide was justified as necessary to protect vulnerable people, and was not disproportionate, given the flexibility in prosecution decisions. The issue was later considered in R (Nicklinson) v Ministry of Justice.
Related cases on right to life (article 2)
- Re A (Children) (Conjoined Twins: Surgical Separation) [2001] Fam 147
- Airedale NHS Trust v Bland [1993] AC 789
- Re Finucane's Application for Judicial Review [2019] UKSC 7
- Jordan v United Kingdom (2003) 37 EHRR 2
- McCann v United Kingdom (1996) 21 EHRR 97
- Michael v Chief Constable of South Wales Police [2015] UKSC 2, [2015] AC 1732
- Opuz v Turkey (2010) 50 EHRR 28
- Osman v United Kingdom (2000) 29 EHRR 245
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