Assisted Dying

Baroness Hollins Excerpts

Monday 13th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hollins]

My Lords, I express an interest as a past president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, which issued a statement in 2005 about the law as it relates to assisted dying. The prosecuting policy published two years ago is not the only one of its kind. There are prosecuting policies relating to other offences, including domestic violence, racial hatred, dangerous driving and rape. The Director of Public Prosecutions told the group chaired by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, last year:

“There is a residual discretion for all offences whether to prosecute or not. This is a particular version of it. But it's not unique by any stretch of the imagination; it's the way our law operates”.

We need to remember that and to see the law on assisted suicide and its associated prosecuting policy within the context of the criminal law as a whole rather than in isolation.

The penalties that it holds in reserve provide a powerful deterrent against malicious assistance and like other criminal laws it gives prosecutors the discretion not to press charges where it is clear that assistance with suicide has been, to quote the words of the prosecution policy, “wholly motivated by compassion”.