Today the UK Supreme Court handed down its decisions on cases involving assisted suicide. On the face of it, these are a defeat for those seeking rulings that would allow the use of a "suicide machine" or for medical professionals to accompany a patient to Switzerland to use Dignitas's facilities without fear of prosecution.
In the UK suicide itself is legal however it is illegal for anybody to assist or pressure somebody to kill themselves. Currently the Director of Public Prosecutions decides whether a prosecution is in the public interest in cases of travel abroad after the event but has issued some rather vague guidelines. Directly assisting a suicide within the UK could and has resulted in a murder conviction with a mandatory life sentence. Judges have though given a very low "tariff" after which parole could be allowed.
All of the applicants have extremely limited mobility, if any. One lost his case at the High Court arguing necessity and decided to refuse food and drink. After his death, his place was taken up by somebody paralysed in a road crash. He is only able to move one hand and is in constant pain.
The UK Supreme Court's function is to determine whether decisions in lower courts are compatible with the European Convention on Human Right. While they ruled that they did have the competence to rule on these cases in the context of Article 8, it was more proper for Parliament to consider revising the law. Three would have made an immediate declaration of incompatibility however the effect of the ruling, in the words of the BBC's Home Affairs correspondent, "boils down to a single phrase directed at Parliament: Sort it out, or we will."
This is the President of the Supreme Court, Lord Neuberger, delivering the summary of the decision.
The full 132 page judgment is here (.pdf)