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The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill passed its second reading debate on 29 November 2024. The current draft of the bill is available here. The dates for the Committee Stage have not yet been announced. Supporters of the bill point out that the bill is limited to allowing assisted dying only for adults with mental capacity who have a terminal illness and can be reasonably expected to die within six months and has a range of safeguards. The process to request assistance requires the approval of two doctors (independent of each other) and a High Court judge. THe bill also creates an offence of dishonesty, coercion and pressure to protect vulnerable people from inappropriate pressures. However, critics of the bill cast doubt on the safeguards, arguing that people can shop around for doctors and that there are not enough High Court judges to provide sufficient scrutiny of applications. There are also continuing debates regarding whether the bill creates a “slippery slope” allowing assisted dying to be available to more people in the future (for example here and here).
In the courts The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has published a judgment that could have wide ranging impacts on states obligations with respect to protection for LGBTQ asylum-seekers. MI is a gay man from Iran who was facing threats from his relatives due to his sexual orientation. He was denied asylum in Switzerland with the Federal Administrative Court holding that while homosexuality is a criminal offence in Iran, in practice convictions are rare. The Federal Administrative Court held that MI’s sexual orientation was not widely known and so he would be safe in Iran provided that he lived “a life of discretion”. The ECtHR held that the Swiss authorities incorrectly determined that MI faced no real risk of ill-treatment because it was unlikely that MI’s sexual orientation would become known to the Iranian authorities. Further, the Swiss authorities failed to carry out the necessary assessment of the availability of state protection against harm caused by non-state actors (in this case MI’s relatives). The ECtHR went on to hold that it would be unreasonable to expect an LGBTQ person to seek protection from the Iranian authorities.
This was one of those deeply troubling cases where there was disagreement amongst the family members over whether their incapacitated brother/father should continue with clinically assisted nutrition and hydration. One brother had applied for ANH to be discontinued, but because of the objections of the patient’s son, it was said that he would “continue to be cared for by nursing staff”.
As Hayden J observed, this was a “troubling non sequitur”:
Family dissent to a medical consensus should never stand in the way of an incapacitated patient’s best interests being properly identified. A difference of view between the doctors and a family member should not be permitted to subjugate this best interest investigation.
This particular hearing was ex post facto: in 11th June 2021, Hayden J delivered an extempore judgment in which he indicated why the continued provision of nutrition and hydration to GU, in the manner outlined above, was contrary to GU’s interests. However, having concluded that it was not in GU’s best interests to continue to receive CANH at the hearing on 11th June 2021, he considered it was necessary to afford RHND the opportunity of explaining what had happened. Amelia Walker of 1 Crown Office Row represented the hospital in these proceedings.
The recognition of a right to life, liberty, and the autonomy of the individual and the mandate of government to secure these rights is being threatened by an increasingly illiberal notion of “human dignity”, says evolutionary psychologist Stephen Pinker.
His 2008 broadside in The New Republic took to task a now defunct body, the US President’s Council on Bioethics whose publication Human Dignity and Bioethics is shot through with disquiet about advances in biotechnology. It could not be more different from the enlightened report issued earlier this year by the Council’s successor calling on the current administration not to stifle biomedical research with over-restrictive regulation (see my post). Does the contrast between the present advisory body’s recommendations and the report put before the previous President signal a fundamental change in the way we approach progress in this field? Probably not. Only two weeks ago, Sir John Gurdon (the Nobel physiologist whom schoolteachers had written off as a scientist) bemoaned the regulatory restrictions that make important therapies too costly to pursue. Pinker’s dismay at the “scientific illiteracy” of society rings true today:
Ever since the cloning of Dolly the sheep a decade ago, the panic sown by conservative bioethicists, amplified by a sensationalist press, has turned the public discussion of bioethics into a miasma of scientific illiteracy. Brave New World, a work of fiction, is treated as inerrant prophesy. Cloning is confused with resurrecting the dead or mass-producing babies. Longevity becomes “immortality,” improvement becomes “perfection,” the screening for disease genes becomes “designer babies” or even “reshaping the species.” The reality is that biomedical research is a Sisyphean struggle to eke small increments in health from a staggeringly complex, entropy-beset human body. It is not, and probably never will be, a runaway train. Continue reading →
On 7th September 2015, Judge Robert Spano (of the European Court of Human Rights) spoke at a high-level international conference on “The Role of Parliaments in the Realisation and Protection of the Rule of Law and Human Rights”, organised by Murray Hunt, Legal Adviser to Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights. This was his second public intervention in the United Kingdom since his seminal speech on “Universality or Diversity of Human Rights: Strasbourg in the Age of Subsidiarity” delivered at Oxford in 2014, the first having been covered by UK Human Rights Blog here, and built upon his earlier speeches by elaborating on four post-Brighton Declaration cases in which the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (the European Court) applied the principle of subsidiarity to find no violation of human rights, considering that the cases fell within the national margin of appreciation, after having examined evidence demonstrating that the national Parliaments had considered the human rights issues. Taken collectively, the four cases demonstrate that Strasbourg is well and truly in the age of subsidiarity, deferring to the decisions of national Parliaments, provided those Parliaments had considered the human rights implications of legislation. Whether this will satisfy Conservative Party concerns that membership of the European Convention on Human Rights is incompatible with the doctrine of Parliamentary sovereignty will be explored at the end of this post. Continue reading →
RightsInfo, the UK Human Rights Blog’s sister site, is looking for new volunteer writers. Do you have a passion for human rights and can you write about law for a lay audience? If so, please apply! All details below, via RightsInfo.
Most of what we produce is written by our amazing volunteer team. To support our news coverage further, we’re seeking new volunteers to write for RightsInfo. We are looking for people with excellent writing skills and a good knowledge and understanding of UK human rights law. If you’re keen on British politics, Brexit or human rights in practice then all the better!
We particularly need people who have time to work on more responsive pieces mid-week as part of our news rota, but we’d love to hear from you even if that’s not you.
If you’d like to apply, send us:
a brief statement on why you would be a good volunteer (max. 100 words)
an indication of whether you would be able to be ‘on call’ one day per week to help us respond to breaking human rights news and, if so, which day of the week you would be able to cover
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Please email your application to info@rightsinfo.org no later than 10pm on Sunday 30th April with the subject line “Volunteer application – [NAME]” and with the case summary and other information all in the body text of the email. We regret that due to the high number of candidates expected, we cannot give individual feedback.
The decision of the Court of Protection in Rotherham and Doncaster and South Humber NHS Foundation Trust and NR [2024] EWCOP 17 is the latest in a line of cases where the Court has been asked to determine whether a termination of pregnancy is in a woman’s best interests. Any case about a termination engages the pregnant woman’s Article 8 rights. But where the woman also lacks capacity to decide for herself whether to have a termination, there must be a particularly careful analysis to ensure that her rights are respected. While previous decisions have frequently accorded weight to the wishes and feelings of the pregnant woman at the heart of the case, Mr Justice Hayden’s decision goes further in handing the decision over to the pregnant woman herself.
What: Dignity, Death and Deprivation of Liberty: Human Rights in the Court of Protection
When: 6pm on Wednesday 10th October 2012
You are invited to join 1 Crown Office Row for an event to mark the 5th Anniversary of the Court of Protection. This Seminar will focus on current key topics in the Court of Protection being debated by two teams of Counsel from 1 Crown Office Row before an interventionist Panel comprising Philip Havers QC, Professor Anthony Grayling and Richard Stein, solicitor at Leigh Day & Co solicitors.
There are still a few places remaining to attend this event. If you are currently a legal practitioner and would like to attend please contact Charlotte Barrow, Marketing Executive at One Crown Office Row on charlotte.barrow@1cor.com stating your name and organisation. Places will be allocated on a first-come-first-served basis.
On Thursday, Harry Dunn’s family were granted permission to appeal against the High Court ruling handed down on 24 November, which held in no uncertain terms that Mrs Sacoolas did enjoy diplomatic immunity at the time she killed 19 year-old Harry Dunn while driving on the wrong side of the road in August of last year. The US state department has refused to waive her immunity under Article 32 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, stating that to allow the waiver, and thereby the extradition request that would inevitably follow would set an “extraordinarily troubling precedent”. The arrests of diplomats Michael Kovrig in China and Rob Macaire in Iran over the last year highlight the continued importance of the inviolability of diplomatic agents serving abroad. However, where there has been an unlawful killing by a family member of an agent, natural inclinations of justice are upset by the failure of a longstanding diplomatic ally to simply do the right thing.
DH NHS Foundation Trust v PS (by her litigation friend, The Official Solicitor) [2010] EWHC 1217 (Fam) – Read judgment
The head of the Family Division, Sir Nicholas Wall, has ordered that a woman with learning disabilities be forced under sedation to undergo surgery in order to save her life.
This case brought to the fore the complex balance between allowing those who lack the capacity the autonomy to make decisions about how they wish to live their lives, and enabling the State to step in when such decisions are not only unwise but actually life threatening. It treads a delicate path between a number of human rights, in particular Article 2 (right to life), Article 5 (right to liberty and security) and Article 8 (right to privacy).
In July 2018 Noel Conway, who suffers from motor neurone disease, lost his claim for a declaration that the UK’s ban on assisted suicide was a disproportionate and unnecessary interference with his right to autonomy under Article 8. The Supreme Court refused to hear his appeal.
An NHS Trust v SR [2012] EWHC 3842 (Fam) – read judgment
The highly publicised case about a seven year old boy whose estranged parents could not agree about the necessary treatment following surgery for his brain tumour was resolved by a firm ruling in favour of orthodox medicine by Bodey J, four days before Christmas.
The facts of the case are well known, but it may be instructive to lay out some of the details of the procedure that follows in a situation like this, and to point up the approach of the courts to a matter where orthodox science lies flat against the claims of complementary medicine. Where the life of a child is at stake, there is no polite equivocation between the two.
Background
Briefly, the mother would not agree to the recommended post-operative course of chemo- and radiotherapy (carrying an 80% chance of success), believing instead that her son would fare better with alternative forms of treatment and would avoid or reduce the undoubtedly detrimental long-term side effects of the treatment package being proposed. In a serious matter such as this, where the parents cannot agree, an application has to be made to the court for a declaration that the procedure in question is lawful. That involves a decision as to the child’s best interests, being the court’s paramount consideration. Hence it was incumbent on the NHS Trust concerned to apply to the High Court to determine the issue of N’s treatment following on from his brain surgery two months previously. Continue reading →
Gina Miller outside the Supreme Court earlier today (Credit: The Telegraph)
The verdict is in. The Supreme Court has unanimously held that Boris Johnson’s advice to the Queen to prorogue Parliament until October 14 was ‘unlawful, void and of no effect’, since it had the effect of frustrating Parliament. As such, the prorogation was itself void.
The full judgment and the summary judgment are available and can be downloaded from the Supreme Court website. Lady Hale’s summary judgement is also widely available to watch in full.
It is undeniable that the Human Rights Act has had a significant impact on the work of the Supreme Court. Just under a quarter (14 of 61) of cases decided during the Court’s 2018-19 term featured a determination on at least one issue relating to the Act or the European Convention on Human Rights. The UK Supreme Court is soon to begin Hilary Term 2020, and whilst the docket of cases it is set to hear this term seems to largely steer clear of controversial human rights issues we can nonetheless be confident that 2020 will feature its usual share of big human rights cases. What follows is a short preview of some of the more interesting and controversial of those cases, all of which the Court is due to hand down at some point this year.
It is well established that, under Article 3 ECHR, the United Kingdom cannot deport an individual to a country where, there is a “real risk” of them being subjected to torture, inhuman or degrading treatment. This has been extended to include situations where the deportee would be placed in circumstances which might occasion a significant deterioration of health, including where they lack access to life-saving treatment.
The question in this case is whether Article 3 prohibits deportation in AM’s situation. He is an HIV-positive individual, whose condition for many years was being managed by anti-retroviral drugs in the UK. If deported to Zimbabwe, he would be very unlikely to have access to the same treatment. Although some medical options would be available to him, they would likely be significantly less effective for the management of his condition.
Previous authorities had restricted the application of Article 3 to ‘deathbed’ cases only, where the deportee would likely die quickly following their removal from the country.
This judgment was handed down to parties via email at 3pm on 31st July 2025. A transparency order is in force. The judge has given leave for this version of the judgment to be published on condition that (irrespective of what is contained in the judgment) in any published version of the judgment the anonymity of Patricia must be strictly preserved.
This application was brought by the parents and aunt of a woman who has previously been anonymised to “Patricia”. Patricia, aged 25, had lived with anorexia nervosa since childhood, and was extremely malnourished with a BMI as low as 7, unable to walk unaided, and suffering severe complications like bed sores and osteoporosis. Diagnosed also with autism and pathological demand avoidance (PDA), Patricia’s condition was refractory despite years of efforts; she persistently refused to eat enough to sustain herself, though she voiced a desire to live and to travel. In 2023, the Court (Moor J) had ordered—after hearing her strongly expressed wishes—that Patricia should not be force-fed or receive medical treatment against her will, emphasising her autonomy in treatment decisions.
Throughout these proceedings Patricia was an in-patient at Norfolk and Norwich University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. She had said she wanted to go to a Specialist Eating Disorder Unit (SEDU) but when this case started she was not medically fit enough to go to one because of her low BMI and her lack of medical stability.
Charlotte Bellamy brings you the latest human rights news
The death knell has tolled on another of Grayling’s policies from his ill-fated tenure as Justice Secretary. The controversial criminal courts charge, which has seen over 50 magistrates resign since its imposition in April, is to join the jettisoned ranks of the prisons contract with Saudi Arabia, the prisoner book ban and plans for a super-sized child prison.
Criticised as a “tax on justice” which encouraged defendants to plead guilty, the charges ranged from £150 (for a guilty plea to a summary only offence) to £1,200 (conviction at trial for indictment). The charge did not take into account the means of the defendant, leading to a plethora of desperate situations including one homeless shoplifter ordered to pay £900 despite “not being able to afford to feed himself” and a £150 levy imposed on another for stealing a can of Redbull worth 99p.
The decision was announced by Gove at the annual meeting of the Magistrates Association last week, where he described the policy as “falling short of its honourable intentions”. His Ministerial Statement suggests he is standing by its “underlying principle”, that “those who break the law should make a contribution towards seeing justice done”. The courts charge came in addition to fines, victim surcharges, compensation orders and prosecution costs, a system Gove concedes is “complex and confusing”, and the whole panoply of which he has now announced a full review.
The Chair of the Justice Committee Bob Neill MP welcomed the change which was so swiftly made after the unequivocally damning report produced by the Committee in November. The Howard League for Penal Reform, who led an uncompromising campaign against the charge, has described Gove’s announcement as a “victory for justice”.
Is the “underlying principle” of which Gove speaks about making “those who break the law” contribute towards seeing justice done? One legal commentator writing in the Solicitors Journal suggests that the abolition of the charge is in fact a Trojan Horse disguising a trade-off for plans to impose in its place a 1 per cent levy on the turnover of the top 100 corporate City law firms – an idea first floated by Gove at a speech to the Legatum Institute in June – the ultimate aim of which is perhaps to remove the criminal justice system from the ambit of public funding completely, with lawyers themselves footing the bill. Continue reading →
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RightsInfo, the UK Human Rights Blog’s sister site, is looking for new volunteer writers. Do you have a passion for human rights and can you write about law for a lay audience? If so, please apply! All details below, via 
What: Dignity, Death and Deprivation of Liberty: Human Rights in the Court of Protection 
An NHS Trust v SR [2012] EWHC 3842 (Fam) – 
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