Disabled man launches fresh bid for assisted suicide guidance

Gordon Ross, 66, who has Parkinson’s disease, is worried that someone who helps him to die will be prosecuted.

He has called on the Lord Advocate to provide guidelines along the lines of those produced by the Director of Public Prosecutions in England and Wales.

In September his case was rejected but will now be heard by three judges in the Court of Session.

Mr Ross lives in a care home in Glasgow but will not attend the hearing as he is too ill.

In May this year he sought judicial review of the decision from the Court of Session.

Aidan O’Neill QC, for Mr Ross, argued that under the European Convention on Human Rights there was a right to a “dignified suicide”.

He said: “In effect a complete and blanket prohibition against or threat of prosecution for all or any who might assist the suicide of another is convention incompatible.”

But counsel for the Lord Advocate Frank Mulholland QC, Gerry Moynihan QC, argued there was no proper foundation in law for what Mr Ross sought.

He told the court: “The Lord Advocate is being asked to produce guidelines on prosecution for assisted suicide. We do not prosecute for assisted suicide. We prosecute for murder or culpable homicide.

“There is no blanket rule in Scots law. Consideration has to be given to the causal connection between the conduct and the death.

“People are entitled to know the Lord Advocate’s policy is he will prosecute and he will.

“To say anything else is to give people a false expectation of immunity from prosecution. That is an illusion.”

Lord Doherty said in a written judgment that current Crown policy was legal and was not in breach of the ECHR.

He wrote: “The policy is consonant with the rule of law. The public know what his policy is and there is no suggestion that that it is being applied inconsistently.”

MSPs rejected the Assisted Suicide Bill in May 82 to 36.