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It is worth paying attention to the actual text of the Suicide Act 1961. All section 1 does is abrogate the previous rule of the common law that suicide was a criminal offence. Whether or not one wishes to argue that committing suicide should now be seen as a human right, I do not see how an enactment that decriminalised suicide could be argued to be in breach of the HRA 1998.

There are just three other substantive provisions of the 1961 Act (ss 2, 2A and 2B), that have the purpose of criminalising complicity in another's suicide or attempted suicide and engaging in acts that are capable of encouraging and assisting suicide or attempted suicide. These can hardly be described as out of date provisions as they were substituted as recently as 2009 by the Coroners and Justice Act of that year.

In common with other legislation since the HRA, the 2009 legislation was the subject of a statement in Parliament prior to second reading of the Bill confirming its compatibility with the HRA, as required by s 19 of the HRA. This whole procedure is intended as a safeguard against legislation inadvertently breaching the HRA, as it forces those putting forward draft legislation for Parliament to enact to be sure in their own assessment that the legislation will indeed be compatible with the HRA. There remains the possibility that the assessment made at the time could turn out to be wrong. It is for that reason that the HRA provides a long-stop power of the Court to declare legislation to be incompatible with the HRA on the issue being brought before it. However, the Parliamentary procedure makes it far less likely in any subsequent proceedings that the Court will actually hold the legislation incompatible with the HRA.

Nor is it obvious to me that complicity in another's suicide or attempted suicide or engaging in acts that are capable of encouraging and assisting suicide or attempted suicide should not be crimes. My recollection is that the background to the 2009 legislation was the propensity for some nasty people to use the internet and social media to target vulnerable and depressed people by encouraging them to commit suicide, almost as a kind of horrendous sport. In my view Parliament was entirely right to criminalise such activity.

In reality, the proceedings under discussion are not really about the 1961 Act at all. Rather, their purpose is to establish a general human right to commit suicide, rather than a mere freedom to do so (such as the 1961 Act allows). I cannot see that, whatever some may want, there is currently a right to commit suicide in English law. Nor is there in any other jurisdiction that I am aware of, save where a right has been created by recent positive statute law. It follows that the only realistic course for those wishing to establish a legal right to commit suicide in this country is to lobby for the right to be enshrined in primary legislation of the UK.

Such a right, if enacted, would be entirely novel and, as we know, highly controversial. Like it or not, the issue is a deeply moral one, having to do with what value our society collectively confers on the preservation of human life and the circumstances in which human lives may be extinguished. Society's values may change over time so that, for example, nowadays abortion under particular conditions is lawful, but capital punishment is no longer lawful. In both these examples, the change has necessarily been brought about by primary legislation. Why should anyone think that the conferring of a right to commit suicide could be brought about in any different way?

And, as a side comment, I for one want MPs to be people who think carefully about the legislation they are asked to assent to and who are prepared to vote in line with the principles they see as important to the issues, rather than vote contrary to their consciences on moral issues. Otherwise we will end up in a very unpleasant society with many human rights curtailed, as we bring back capital and corporal punishment and treat various minorities as third class citizens. Beware what you wish for.