Academics unite in call for assisted suicide clarity

The issue of clarifying the Scots law of assisted suicide should not be allowed to drop, whether or not the bill currently before Holyrood passes stage 1, according to a group of leading Scots academics. 

In a letter published in today's Herald, 21 professors and other teachers from across Scotland's universities highlight the "alarming lack of clarity in Scots law", and say they hope MSPs will allow the bill to pass stage 1 "in the hope that further debate on its provisions may result in clarification of the law or that, if the bill falls, the matter is not allowed to drop".

The writers, among them Professor James Chalmers of Glasgow University who helped organise the letter, are concerned that when the Justice Committee reported on the bill in January, "it found itself unable to give any detail about the legal rules applicable to assisting a suicide in Scotland, offering a discussion of English law instead". This means, they continue, that the response to almost any question about the Scots law has to be that prosecution "cannot be ruled out".

And the uncertainty "is only made worse" by the absence of any published prosecutorial guidance, despite a clear ruling in England that human rights law requires guidance about the circumstances in which prosecutors will act against people who assist suicide.

Not all the letter's signatories support the current bill, but they are clear that something needs to be done for the sake of clarity. 

The Crown Office states that the Lord Advocate has made it clear that anyone who assists another to die will be dealt with under the law of homicide.