Legal bid on suicide for depressed people

DEPRESSED Britons might win the legal right to kill themselves in Switzerland if a test case in the country's supreme court succeeds next month.

Ludwig Minelli, founder of the Zurich-based non-profit organisation Dignitas, which has helped 54 Britons suffering from terminal illness die, said it might extend the policy to those who want to die for other reasons.

He told delegates at a Liberal Democrat fringe event in Brighton that another Briton was due to be helped to die by Dignitas on Tuesday.

"We should see, in principle, suicide as a marvellous possibility given to human beings because they have a conscience ... if you accept the idea of personal autonomy, you can't make conditions that only terminally-ill people should have this right," he said.

A case will be heard at the supreme court in Switzerland on 27 October of a person suffering from manic depression. If the individual wins the right to die, the decision will have implications across Europe.

The Liberal Democrats broadly support the idea of assisted dying for the terminally ill, but Chris Davies, the MEP who invited Mr Minelli to speak, made clear that the party did not back extending the choice to those who suffered from depression.