Noel Conway vs Ministry of Justice

Parliament hasn’t listened, so I'm going to court

I have motor neurone disease (MND), and I know that I will soon die - the question is how?

My condition is incurable and terminal. It’s a relentless and merciless prognosis – eventually this disease will kill me.

In the next few months I will ask the courts to declare that the blanket prohibition on assisted dying is contrary to my human rights.

Please help by donating towards my legal fund

The law is broken. With no option of assisted dying I have no control of how my life will end and many others suffer unnecessarily against their wishes. As someone who has always been in control of my life and taken responsibility for myself, I find this unacceptable.

I believe it is a fundamental human right

If you do too, please donate to my legal fund and help me achieve a more compassionate law for us all.

I’m not just trying to change the law for myself. In fact even if my case is successful, it may not be in time for me. I want the law to change for the benefit of all dying people and for our country, so we can say we live in a land that offers people real choice when they face suffering at the end of life.

Why is this case so important?

If my case is successful and the courts agree that the blanket ban on assisted dying contravenes my right to a private life they would make a declaration that the current law on assisted dying is incompatible with Human Rights law.

Depending on the detail of the judgment, it would require Parliament to give detailed consideration to how the law could be changed on assisted dying to bring it into line with human rights law.

A declaration by the Canadian Supreme Court following a similar case (Carter v. Canada) was the key driver of law change in Canada. As a result of the Supreme Court’s judgment in February 2015, the new Canadian government introduced assisted dying legislation in June 2016.

Questions

With the support of Dignity in Dying, I have instructed lawyers to seek a judicial review. More details about the legal case can be found on their website.

Dignity in Dying campaigns for greater choice, control and access to services at the end of life. It advocates providing terminally ill adults with the option of an assisted death, within strict legal safeguards, and for universal access to high quality end-of-life care.