Disability campaigners Merv and Nikki Kenward are to appeal the High Court ruling of 4 December that the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) acted lawfully in loosening prosecution policy in cases of assisted suicide.
Mrs Kenward, who was left paralysed by Guillain-Barre Syndrome in 1990, said that the court’s decision was ‘bizarre’ and ‘leaves vulnerable people at risk from dodgy doctors. On behalf of the disabled, elderly, terminally ill and others who are vulnerable, we will continue the fight for a reversal of this deceptive and dangerous liberalisation of prosecution policy’, she said.
Judicial Review rejected
An application for Judicial Review was heard last month by the president of the Queen’s Bench Division (Sir Brian Leveson) and two other High Court judges, but was rejected in December’s judgment.
Mrs Kenward said: ‘The DPP simply asserted that, despite standing for five years, the published prosecution policy didn’t actually express what had been intended. The court has accepted this blatant revisionism without any real challenge or justification.
Goalposts moved
‘This area of law is a matter of life and death. How can we be sure of proper protections if the goalposts can be moved, on a whim, five years down the line, without consultation? How can anyone rely on the prosecution policy, if it can be unilaterally ‘reinterpreted’ by the DPP without public scrutiny?’
Mr and Mrs Kenward are supported by the Christian Legal Centre and were represented in court by Standing Counsel Paul Diamond.
