Suicide bid woman renews appeal

Feb 3 2009

A woman suffering from multiple sclerosis is to renew her challenge to the law on assisted suicide.

Debbie Purdy wants to know if her husband, Cuban violinist Omar Puente, will be prosecuted if he helps her travel abroad to die in a country where the practice is legal.

In England and Wales, aiding and abetting suicide is a criminal offence punishable by up to 14 years in prison.

Ms Purdy, 45, from Undercliffe, Bradford, West Yorkshire, is seeking to force the Director of Public Prosecutions, Sir Ken Macdonald, to issue specific policy guidelines.

Such guidelines already exist for crimes of domestic violence, bad driving and football-related offences.

At an earlier hearing, her lawyers argued that lack of proper guidance infringed her Article 8 right to private and family life under the European Convention on Human Rights.

In October, Lord Justice Scott Baker and Mr Justice Aikens, sitting at London's High Court, expressed sympathy for the couple, and others in a similar position, but rejected her application for judicial review.

They ruled the Code of Practice for Crown Prosecutors already issued by the DPP, coupled with the general safeguards of administrative law, satisfied human rights convention standards and met the need for "clarity and foreseeability".

Ms Purdy, whose legal action is supported by Dignity in Dying - formerly the Voluntary Euthanasia Society - was diagnosed with primary progressive MS in 1995 and has been a wheelchair user since 2001.

The two-day appeal is due to be heard by the Lord Chief Justice Lord Judge, Lord Justice Lloyd and Lord Justice Ward.