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Permitting Voluntary Euthanasia And Assisted Suicide: Law Reform Pathways For Common Law Jurisdictions, Jocelyn Downie
Permitting Voluntary Euthanasia And Assisted Suicide: Law Reform Pathways For Common Law Jurisdictions, Jocelyn Downie
Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press
End of life law and policy reform is the subject of much discussion around the world. This paper explores the pathways to permissive legal regimes that have been tried in various common law jurisdictions. These include legislation, prosecutorial charging guidelines, court challenges, jury nullification, the exercise of prosecutorial discretion in the absence of offence-specific charging guidelines, and the exercise of judicial discretion in sentencing. In this paper, I describe these pathways as taken (or attempted) in five common law jurisdictions (USA, UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada) and reflect briefly on lessons that can be drawn from the recent experiences …
Egregious Inaction: Five Years After 'Of Life And Death', Jocelyn Downie
Egregious Inaction: Five Years After 'Of Life And Death', Jocelyn Downie
Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press
In November 1999, the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology was authorized to examine and report upon developments since the release of Of Life and Death, the final report of the Special Senate Committee on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide. A subcommittee to update Of Life and Death was therefore established. On February 14, 2000, I participated in the first panel of witnesses before this subcommittee. In light of the subcommittee's mandate, I set myself the following two tasks: first, to update the legal status sections of Of Life and Death by reporting on any changes to the …