## Facts

- Gloria Taylor, diagnosed with ALS, sought the option of physician-assisted dying to avoid enduring suffering and loss of autonomy as her condition progressed.
- Lee Carter and Hollis Johnson assisted Kay Carter, who had degenerative spinal stenosis, in obtaining assisted suicide in Switzerland.
- Dr. William Shoichet stated he would provide physician-assisted dying if it were lawful.
- The British Columbia Civil Liberties Association joined as a claimant in a constitutional challenge.
- The challenge targeted Criminal Code provisions that operated as a blanket prohibition: (1) barring consent to death being inflicted and (2) criminalizing aiding or abetting suicide.
- The trial court held the provisions unjustifiably infringed Charter s. 7, declared them invalid with a suspension, and granted Taylor an individual exemption.
- The court of appeal reversed largely on stare decisis, treating an earlier Supreme Court decision upholding the prohibition as binding.
- The Supreme Court of Canada allowed the appeal and restored the trial result with modifications.

## Issues

1. Whether the blanket prohibition on physician-assisted dying deprives competent adults seeking such assistance of the Charter s. 7 rights to life, liberty, and security of the person.
2. If so, whether the deprivation accords with principles of fundamental justice, including arbitrariness, overbreadth, and gross disproportionality.
3. If Charter s. 7 is infringed, whether the infringement is justified under Charter s. 1.
4. Whether the prohibition violates Charter s. 15 equality rights, and if so, whether any violation is justified.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court unanimously held that the blanket prohibition violated Charter s. 7 and was not saved by Charter s. 1.
- The Court concluded the prohibition:
  - Engaged the right to life by encouraging some persons to end their lives earlier than they otherwise would out of fear of later incapacity.
  - Engaged liberty and security of the person by interfering with fundamental choices concerning bodily integrity and medical care and by forcing individuals to endure intolerable suffering.
- The Court accepted the state objective as protecting vulnerable persons from being induced to die at a time of weakness.
- The Court found the prohibition not arbitrary but overbroad because it captured competent, consenting adults who were not the class the law aimed to protect.
- The Court declared the provisions of no force or effect to the extent they prohibited physician-assisted death for a competent adult who:
  1) clearly consents to the termination of life; and  
  2) has a grievous and irremediable medical condition (including illness, disease, or disability) causing enduring suffering that is intolerable to the person in their circumstances.
- The declaration of invalidity was suspended for 12 months to allow legislative response.
- The Court did not decide the s. 15 claim because the case was resolved under s. 7.
- The Court departed from and overruled its prior precedent upholding the prohibition, relying on changes in the evidentiary record and developments in s. 7 doctrine.

## Legal Principles

- A criminal prohibition may violate the right to life where it has the effect of shortening life by prompting premature death to avoid later incapacity.
- Liberty and security of the person protect profoundly personal medical decisions and bodily integrity, including decisions about the timing and manner of death in conditions of enduring, intolerable suffering.
- A law is overbroad when it restricts protected interests more than necessary to achieve its objective; overbreadth is sufficient to establish a Charter s. 7 breach.
- Protecting vulnerable persons is a pressing and substantial objective, but an absolute ban may fail minimal impairment where a regulatory regime with safeguards could achieve protection with less rights infringement.
- Constitutional relief may be tailored by limiting invalidity to defined factual circumstances and suspending invalidity to permit legislative action.

## Conclusion

The Supreme Court of Canada held that Canada’s blanket criminal ban on physician-assisted dying violated Charter s. 7 as overbroad and unjustified, and it invalidated the prohibition to permit physician-assisted death for competent, consenting adults with grievous and irremediable medical conditions causing enduring suffering intolerable to them, subject to a time-limited suspension for legislative response.


Carter v. Canada (Att’y Gen.), 2015 SCC 5 (Can. 2015)