Ban on assisted suicide ‘unconstitutional’
The ban on assisted suicide is unconstitutional, unnecessary, unjustified, disproportionate, and irreconcilable with the right of Marie Fleming, aged 58, to a dignified death in a manner and timing of her choice, her senior counsel Brian Murray argued.
It was the second day of the landmark action by Ms Fleming, of Co Wicklow, to establish a right to end her life with assistance.
Ms Fleming has reached the terminal stage of multiple sclerosis and wants to be allowed die with dignity.
The special three-judge court hearing the case was asked yesterday by a Dublin man if he could join the action.
William Hennessy, of Grove Avenue, Blackrock, Co Dublin, applied to be joined to the case on grounds he has significant physical injuries and is concerned his right to life could be adversely affected by the case.
The State opposed the application and the court ruled he made out no grounds at this stage to be joined.
Earlier, in exchanges with the President of the High Court, Mr Justice Nicholas Kearns, who asked whether concerns about rising suicide rates were a factor to be considered, Mr Murray agreed there was a societal interest in discouraging suicide but argued the State had failed to show how the interests of the common good qualified Ms Fleming’s rights.
Cases involving suicide pacts and mercy killings being relied on by the State are not relevant in the circumstances of Ms Fleming’s case, he submitted.
Strict safeguards and protocols had been introduced in other jurisdictions to address concerns about vulnerable people being encouraged by relatives or carers to take their own lives when they had not made such a decision themselves, he said.
Such safeguards would afford more protection to the vulnerable than a total ban on assisted suicide, said Mr Murray.
The rights to life, privacy, self-determination, dignity, and equality were all involved here, and the court was not being asked to take any step terminating a life but to allow a competent person realise the effects of all those rights, he said.
The entitlement to a dignified death is protected by the Constitution and European Convention on Human Rights, and the State has no right to say its interest in a person’s life or “some theory of natural law” overrides that person’s absolute right to decide the course of their own lives, Mr Murray added.
The State cannot intrude into a zone of private behaviour “and criminalise it because it doesn’t like it”.
Mr Justice Kearns said the court required an affidavit outlining the effects on Ms Fleming if she decided to refuse palliative treatment at a later stage.
That matter may be a factor in any balancing exercise the court might undertake, he said.
