MS Sufferer Purdy Wins Bid for U.K Suicide-Law Review (Update1)

July 30 (Bloomberg) -- A British woman suffering from multiple sclerosis won her bid to have the laws governing assisted dying clarified.

Debbie Purdy, 46, called on judges at the House of Lords to order prosecutors to say whether they would charge her husband if he took her to the Swiss assisted-suicide clinic Dignitas to help her die. The Lords ruled on the case in London today.

Keir Starmer, the director of public prosecutions, must “promulgate” a policy stating in which circumstances he would prosecute in assisted dying cases, the Law Lords ruled.

“I’m ecstatic, it gives me back my life,” Purdy told Sky News after the ruling.

Starmer told Sky he accepted the ruling. He said an interim policy would be in place by the end of September, and he would launch a public consultation on permanent rules, which could be ready next year.

Purdy’s lawyer, David Pannick, had also asked the judges at the U.K.’s highest court to tell prosecutors to publicize what criteria they use when considering a prosecution under a law on suicide.

Purdy, 46, from Bradford, England, was diagnosed with MS in 1995.

The ruling is one of the last to be delivered by the House of Lords. The court goes into recess after today, and when it returns in October it will be replaced by a new Supreme Court of the U.K.

To contact the reporter on this story: James Lumley in London at jlumley1@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Anthony Aarons at aaarons@bloomberg.net