OTTAWA -- The Supreme Court of Canada has unanimously struck down the
ban on providing a doctor-assisted death to mentally competent but
suffering and "irremediable" patients.
The historic, groundbreaking decision from the country's top court
sweeps away the existing law and gives Parliament a year to draft new
legislation that recognizes the right of clearly consenting adults who
are enduring intolerable suffering -- physical or mental -- to seek
medical help ending their lives.
The judgment, which is unsigned to reflect the unanimous institutional
weight of the court, says the current ban infringes on all three of the
life, liberty and and security of person provisions in Section 7 of the
Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
It does not limit physician-assisted death to those suffering a terminal illness.
The court clearly instructs parliamentarians that current laws
"unjustifiably infringe s. 7 of the charter and are of no force or
effect to the extent that they prohibit physician-assisted death for a
competent adult person who (1) clearly consents to the termination of
life and (2) has a grievous and irremediable medical condition
(including an illness, disease or disability) that causes enduring
suffering that is intolerable to the individual in the circumstances of
his or her condition."
The pressure will now be on Parliament to act in an election year, as
the court says no exemptions may be granted for those seeking to end
their lives during the 12-month suspension of the judgment.
Friday's decision was spurred by the families of two now-deceased
British Columbia women, supported by the B.C. Civil Liberties
Association.
Gloria Taylor, who had a neurodegenerative disease, eventually died of
an infection. Kay Carter, then 89, travelled to Switzerland, where
assisted suicide is allowed.
Taylor had won a constitutional exemption at a lower court for a
medically assisted death in 2012, but that decision was overturned in
subsequent appeals.
The Supreme Court gave a ringing endorsement of the original B.C. trial
judge's findings, albeit not for a constitutional exemption.
The decision reverses the top court's 1993 ruling in the case of Sue
Rodriguez, a fact the decision attributes to changing jurisprudence and
an altered social landscape.
Two decades ago, the court was concerned that vulnerable persons could
not be properly protected under physician-assisted suicide, even though
courts recognized the existing law infringed a person's rights.
But the experience of existing jurisdictions that permit doctor-assisted suicide compelled the courts to examine the record.
The B.C. trial judge "found no compelling evidence that a permissive
regime in Canada would result in a 'practical slippery slope,"' wrote
the top court.
"An individual's response to a grievous and irremediable medical
condition is a matter critical to their dignity and autonomy," the
judgment says.
"The law allows people in this situation to request palliative
sedation, refuse artificial nutrition and hydration, or request the
removal of life-sustaining medical equipment, but denies the right to
request a physician's assistance in dying."
The ruling goes on to state that "by leaving people like Ms. Taylor to
endure intolerable suffering, it impinges on their security of person."
The nine Supreme Court justices also note that when their court struck
down the country's prostitution laws in 2013, it recognized that the
legal conception of "gross disproportionality" has changed since the
Rodriguez decision.
"By contrast, the law on overbreadth, now explicitly recognized as a
principle of fundamental justice, asks whether the law interferes with
some conduct that has no connnection to the law's objectives," says the
judgment.
"The blanket prohibition (on physician-assisted death) sweeps conduct into its ambit that is unrelated to the law's objective."
The court agreed with the trial judge "that a permissive regime with
properly designed and administered safeguards was capable of protecting
vulnerable people from abuse and error. While there are risks, to be
sure, a carefully designed and managed system is capable of adequately
addressing them."
