The High Court has ruled against allowing assisted suicide. 
Earlier today, the three-judge sitting of the Court rejected an appeal by Marie Fleming, who was arguing that Ireland’s ban on assisted suicide was a breach of her rights under the Constitution and under the European Convention on Human Rights.
In its ruling, the Court said it could not agree the legislation was disproportionate, RTE reports. It gave its judgment today after a six-day hearing last month.
In December, Ms Fleming told the court the ban on assisted suicide forced her to live against her will in a life of pain and indignity.
She argued the law discriminates against her by banning assisted suicide while an able-bodied person is free to take their own life.
But lawyers for the State argued that while it was not a criminal act, there was no constitutional right to take your own life.
The State was entitled to maintain the ban, as a matter of social policy to protect others. Doctors who gave evidence for the State said they believed the removal of the ban would be the slippery slope towards involuntary euthanasia.
The court held that there was “real risk”, even with rigorous safeguards, that it “would be impossible to ensure that the aged, the disabled, the poor, the unwanted, the rejected, the lonely, the impulsive, the financially compromised and emotionally vulnerable would not avail of option in order to avoid a sense of being a burden on their family and society”, if the ban was removed, the Irish Times reports.
The court also found the Director of Public Prosecutions could not issue guidelines setting out what facts she would consider in deciding whether to prosecute cases of assisted suicide.
Only the Oireachtas can change the law and it would be unconstitutional for the DPP to effect a change in the law by issuing guidelines which would have the effect of the law not being enforced, it said.
However, it added, if there was “reliable” evidence after an assisted suicide of compliance with guidelines such as those set out by the UK DPP in relation to assisted suicide prosecutions, the court said it believed the DPP here would excerise her discretion “in this of all cases” in a “a humane and sensitive fashion”.
Giving the court’s judgment, the President of the High Court, Mr Justice Nicholas Kearns, said that if the court could tailor-make a solution which would suit the needs of Ms Fleming alone without any possible implications for third parties or society at large, there might be a good deal to be said for her Artice 40.3.2 case [relating to personal autonomy],” he said. “But this court cannot be so satisfied.”
