Lawyers have broadly welcomed a key amendment to the ‘end of life’ bill eliminating the requirement for a High Court judge to approve assisted dying requests. The amendment, at committee stage, gives the role to a judge-appointed three person panel. Panellists would be lawyers, social workers and psychiatrists. 

Judicial oversight was originally promoted as a key safeguard in the proposed legislation. On 29 November last year Kim Leadbeater MP, sponsor of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, told the Commons: ‘Under the bill, any terminally ill person who wants to be considered for an assisted death would have to undertake a thorough and robust process involving two doctors and a High Court judge. No other jurisdiction in the world has those layers of safeguarding.’ 

But many lawyers were sceptical. Deputy High Court judge David Locke KC told a seminar: ‘I worry about the capacity issue for the courts.’ He added, on the point of assessing the presence of coercion, that the ‘doctors’ who the court would rely on ‘aren’t investigators’. 

In February, when the change was contemplated, Dr Gordon Macdonald, chief executive of campaign group Care Not Killing, which opposes the bill, called the oversight of a High Court judge an ‘important measure’. He pointed out: ‘Approval by the High Court was sold to members of the public and our elected representatives in Parliament as the key safeguard that would make this legislation the “safest in the world”.’

Louise Lewis, Freeths

Louise Lewis: ‘A three-person panel would provide extra safeguards'

Sarah Wootton, chief executive of campaign group Dignity in Dying, pointed out: ‘It is a measure that even committee members who voted against the bill at second reading have indicated they… support.’ 

‘A three-person panel would provide extra safeguards,’ is Freeths private client partner Louise Lewis’s assessment. ‘It means that three independent experts must discuss and agree on the position, rather than one high court judge who may lack experience with vulnerable clients. This will also mean extra safety for people because experts working in the field of mental capacity and vulnerable clients will have more insight into the red flags around abuse of those clients, and it means more probing work will be done on the decision to allow a person to end their life early.’ 

Lewis added: ‘I personally think this seems better than the High Court option.’