Following the House of Lords' decision in Purdy, the Director of Public Prosecutions issued an interim policy for prosecutors setting out the factors to be considered when deciding whether a prosecution in an assisted suicide case is in the public interest. This paper considers the interim policy, the subsequent public consultation and the resulting final policy. Key aspects of the policy are examined, including the condition of the victim, the decision to commit suicide and the role of organised or professional assistance. The inclusion of assisted suicides which take place within England and Wales makes the informal legal change realised by the policy more significant than was originally anticipated.

In 2009 the legislature, judges and Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) each turned their attention to issues around assisted suicide. The legislature decided not to change the law. The judges decided the existing law was insufficiently clear and required the Director to clarify it. The Director flirted with reforming the law, but then drew back from such a legislative role. His published prosecution policy has been considered as a contribution to the regulation of death and dying, and as such has been found wanting. However, considered in the context of the proper roles of Parliament, courts and prosecutors, and seen as an exercise in constitutional restraint, the Director's approach should be appraised rather differently. From this perspective, the decision of the Judicial Committee of the House of Lords in R (Purdy) v DPP raises significant concerns for the legitimacy of decision making in the contested moral issues that arise in healthcare ethics. In our democracy, courts should be wary of usurping legislative authority in areas where the Parliamentary position is clear. They should be reluctant to take sides in the protracted war over access to a ‘good death’.

Restorative justice principles often feature prominently in peace agreements and initiatives to foster reconciliation and peace-building. As part of its own transitional process, Northern Ireland has undertaken a wide-ranging programme of criminal justice reform, whereby restorative practices have become a central response to juvenile offending. Drawing on a major evaluation of the Northern Ireland Youth Conferencing Scheme, this paper suggests that restorative conferencing holds the potential not only to promote reconciliation between victims and offenders, but it may even bolster the legitimacy deficit suffered by criminal justice institutions. Whilst is vital that such schemes continue to foster their engagement with civil society and the wider community, the broader potential of restorative processes to contribute to post-conflict peace-building is considerable, especially in relation to fostering a sense of legitimacy necessary for the operation of society and the institutions of the state.

The aim in this paper is to challenge the increasingly common view in the literature that the law on end-of-life decision making is in disarray and is in need of urgent reform. The argument is that this assessment of the law is based on assumptions about the relationship between the identity of the defendant and their conduct, and about the nature of causation, which, on examination, prove to be indefensible. A clarification of the relationship between causation and omissions is provided which proves that the current legal position does not need modification, at least on the grounds that are commonly advanced for the converse view. This paves the way for a clarification, in conclusion, of important conceptual and moral differences between withholding, refusing and withdrawing life-sustaining measures, on the one hand, and assisted suicide and euthanasia, on the other.

The paper assesses the extension of the public sector equality duty to cover religion and belief. The duty on public authorities is to have due regard to the need to eliminate discrimination, harassment and victimisation on grounds of religion and belief; and advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations between people of different religions (and none). The paper considers a number of concerns about how this duty may be applied in the context of religion and belief, and, in particular, that it could give rise to resentment between communities rather than fostering good relations. It is suggested that the potential difficulties of such a duty, when applied to religion and belief, may be lessened if it is based overtly on a concept of equality which aims to address disadvantage, rather than on a concept based on dignity or recognition.