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Assisted dying assisted suicide

Welcome Tony Baldwinson

Many of you will recall how much support the late Juliet Marlow provided to Not Dead Yet UK. We came to rely on her to keep the NDYUK ship afloat and to ensure that our message was broadcast far and wide.

Her death was a tremendous shock and left a very big hole in our hearts and in the way we organise and manage our campaigns. Fortunately, another great ally, Tony Baldwinson has volunteered his time and expertise to help support us. We are delighted to have him as part of our group.

Tony will take on many of Juliet’s past activities. He will manage our social media campaign work and support our communications with members and supporters.

Tony works as a project manager and activist with over 40 years’ experience in the public, voluntary and community sectors around Manchester, both paid and as a volunteer.

His first involvement in working with the social model was with Manchester Mind’s radical campaigns around 1980. (Tony’s late partner Lorraine Gradwell, was Breakthrough UK’s first chief executive and was known and respected by many disabled activists).

Tony’s has a degree in Computation and his Masters was on The history of the photography of disabled people’s organisations in England. His favourite ‘find’ was a photo negative of a protest march in 1920 under a banner saying “Justice Not Charity”.

He is currently working on the creation of detailed archives for around a dozen radical disability and mental health organisations.

His day job is in managing projects with EU funding.

You can contact Tony at tonybaldwinson24@gmail.com

Good luck Tony and welcome aboard.

Categories
Assisted dying assisted suicide

Noel Conway has lost his appeal at the Supreme Court.

Supreme Court judges rejected Noel Conway’s bid to appeal against the ruling, as his chance of success was “not sufficient”.

It means Mr Conway’s case cannot proceed any further.

In a joint statement the judges, Lady Hale, Lord Reed and Lord Kerr, said they had reached their decision “not without some reluctance”.

For more information

BBC  https://bbc.in/2zs5k81   

Guardian http://bit.ly/2P5AKWu

 

Categories
Assisted dying assisted suicide

Conway has applied for permission to appeal.

The Supreme Court has received an application for permission to appeal in a case that raises the issue as to whether section 1(2) of the Suicide Act 1961, which makes assisting suicide a crime, is compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights (“the Convention”).

The appellant, Mr Conway, is a 68-year-old man who was diagnosed with a form of motor neurone disease (“MND”) in November 2014. Mr Conway has to use a wheelchair and requires ever increasing levels of assistance with daily life, including breathing, eating and bodily functions.

When Mr Conway has a prognosis of six months or less to live, he wishes to have the option of taking action to end his life peacefully and with dignity, accomplished with the assistance of the medical profession, at a time of his choosing, whilst remaining in control of such final act as may be required to bring about his death.

Mr Conway applied to the High Court for a declaration of incompatibility under section 4 of the Human Rights Act 1998 (“HRA”) on the basis that section 2(1) of the 1961 Act is a disproportionate interference with his right to respect for his private life under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human rights. On 5 October 2017, the Divisional Court dismissed Mr Conway’s application, and his appeal was dismissed by the Court of Appeal on 27 June 2018.

The Supreme Court is aware of the urgency of the matter and an oral hearing took place on Thursday 22 November a panel of three Supreme Court Justices. No decision was made at the hearing – Lady Hale said that it would be made ‘as soon as possible’.

Following the Supreme Court hearing, if permission to appeal is granted, a further hearing date will be set to consider the substantive appeal.

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