The Supreme Court has dismissed Marie Fleming’s challenge to Ireland’s prohibition on assisting another person to commit suicide.
Fleming, who was 59 and living with advanced multiple sclerosis, sought to have section 2(2) of the Criminal Law (Suicide) Act 1993 declared unconstitutional and incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights.
She lived with her partner, Tom Curran, and required assistance with eating, drinking, washing, dressing and movement. The court recorded that she suffered severe pain, choking episodes and progressive neurological deterioration, while retaining her cognitive capacity and decision-making ability.
Fleming told the High Court that she wished to have a peaceful death with her family present but did not want her partner or children exposed to prosecution for helping her. Section 2(2) makes aiding, abetting, counselling or procuring another person’s suicide an offence carrying a maximum 14-year prison term.
The Supreme Court held that although suicide itself was decriminalised in 1993, that did not create a constitutional right to commit suicide. Nor did constitutional protections for life, autonomy, dignity, bodily integrity or self-determination establish a right to assistance in ending one’s life.
The court also rejected Fleming’s equality argument. It held that the law applied equally to anyone assisting another person’s suicide and that her inability to end her own life without help arose from her physical condition rather than unequal wording in the statute.
The judges stressed that their ruling did not prevent the Oireachtas from legislating for exceptional cases with safeguards if it considered that appropriate. Any such legislation would then be subject to constitutional review.
The court also refused a declaration that the law breached the European Convention on Human Rights, relying particularly on European case law permitting states a wide margin in regulating assisted suicide to protect life and vulnerable people.