Top judge: No moral duty to obey law on assisted dying

A FORMER Supreme Court judge stepped into the debate over assisted suicide by arguing that nobody is under a ‘ moral obligation to obey the law’.

Lord Sumption, a justice of the country’s highest court until the end of last year, said people should choose for themselves whether to follow the law which forbids them from helping others to die.

He said he supported the law that makes assisted suicide a crime, but said there was an ‘untidy compromise’ in which friends and families are helping terminally or hopelessly ill individuals to die. The suggestion that obedience to the law is not

‘Broken from time to time’

a moral requirement is an unprecedented public statement from a senior judge – especially one whose Supreme Court job was to lay down and interpret the law in test cases.

Assisting a suicide is a crime which can bring a 14-year prison sentence.

Lord Sumption, 70, was giving his first talk in a BBC Reith Lectures series when he was questioned by an audience member about the assisted suicide law.

‘I think the law should continue to criminalise assisted suicide, and I think that the law should be broken from time to time,’ he said.

‘We need to have a law in order to prevent abuse. It has always been the case that it has been criminal, but it has also been the case that courageous friends and families have helped people to die.

‘That is an untidy compromise few lawyers would adopt, but I don’t believe there is a moral obligation to obey the law. Ultimately it is for each person to decide.’