Last year this column had cause to comment several times on the bill that became the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 as it made its progress through Parliament. The Act received Royal Assent on 12 November 2009 after receiving, importantly in view of current events, cross-party support in both Houses of Parliament.

The creation of the post of Chief Coroner for England and Wales was at the heart of the Act. The role was designed to introduce national leadership of the coroner service, a crucial step in tackling unacceptable delays, inconsistent standards of service delivery and lack of accountability. The Act also contained measures to introduce a Medical Adviser to the Chief Coroner, deliver an improved service for bereaved people, including the introduction of a Charter for Bereaved People, and a system of appeals against coroners’ decisions. It also introduced national standards that coroners should meet, supported by training and guidance.

Then came the hammer blow. In a House of Commons Written Ministerial Statement on 14 October 2010, Justice Minister Jonathan Djanogly said: “However, after careful consideration, we have decided that in the current economic climate we cannot go ahead with plans to implement national leadership from a Chief Coroner, an appeals system, or a medical adviser. We have proposed that the abolition of the office of the Chief Coroner should be included in the Public Bodies Bill…and we are further considering the transfer of some of the Chief Coroner’s functions to suitable alternative bodies.” He went on to say: “We will continue to work collaboratively with coroners, local government and police authorities to deliver service improvements. We will also explore with voluntary sector organisations how we can work together better, so as to provide further support for people when they suffer a sudden or unexpected bereavement.” Peter Thornton QC, a Senior Circuit Judge at the Central Criminal Court, had been appointed to the post of Chief Coroner but had not yet taken up his duties. Now he won’t.

This announcement has provoked widespread dismay. The Royal British Legion had welcomed the original legislation, believing that the establishment of a Chief Coroner’s Office was critical to improving the working of the inquest system in relation to military inquests and provided necessary reforms to the inquest system, such as oversight and monitoring of investigations into Service deaths, compulsory training for coroners carrying out military inquests, and new rights of appeal for families. Reacting to the abolition, Chris Simpkins, Director General of the Legion, said: “We are concerned that the families of our fallen heroes will no longer have confidence that the circumstances of their loved ones’ deaths will be thoroughly investigated.” He added: “We believe this decision would be a deep betrayal of bereaved Service families.”

INQUEST, a charity which provides free legal advice to bereaved people, also condemned the announcement. Deborah Coles, Co-Director, said: “The dysfunctional and flawed inquest system is in need of complete reform. It is dishonest to suggest today’s proposals to tweak rules and regulations will deliver the fundamental change that is needed urgently.” She added: “Not only does this decision fail bereaved families but also society, which should have an inquest system fit for purpose in the 21st Century. The inquest is usually the only public forum in which contentious deaths such as accidents, deaths at work, deaths in custody or deaths of military personnel are subjected to public scrutiny. The current system is failing to perform its preventative function. Today’s announcement by the Coalition government will frustrate the opportunity to create a system which saves lives. This is a false economy if there ever was one.”

The Coroners and Justice Act 2009 has cropped up in these blogs several times before. This grab-bag of an Act covers a wide range of subjects. Apart from coroners and inquests, it deals with murder, indecent photographs, anonymity of witnesses, live links to court, confiscation orders, legal aid, criminal memoirs, and many other matters.

The latest section to be implemented is s.59, which deals with encouraging or assisting suicide. Previously, s.2 of the Suicide Act 1961 comprised two offences. This amendment replaces the substantive offence of aiding, abetting, counselling or procuring suicide, and the separate offence of attempting to commit the section 2 offence, with a single offence. The purpose of these changes is to “improve public understanding of the law in this area; and make clear that the law applies to online actions in exactly the same way as it does offline”. In line with the Law Commission’s recommendation, s.59 also replaces the “old-fashioned language” with what the Ministry of Justice considers “the more modern – and equivalent – terms of encouraging or assisting which should make it easier for people to understand the sort of behaviour that the law prohibits”. The scope of the law remains the same, so these changes, which came into effect on 1 February, do not make liable to prosecution anyone who was not liable before.

The subject of assisted suicide is rarely out of the headlines. In recent weeks one devoted mother who helped her sick daughter to end her life with tablets and morphine walked free from court with a suspended sentence. Another was jailed for murder, to serve a minimum of nine years, after injecting her brain-damaged son with a lethal dose of heroin. Both involved a loving parent who could not bear to see a child suffer. But there were key differences. Frances Inglis’s son had never indicated an intention to die. His mother believed him to be in pain and could not accept an encouraging medical prognosis. Kay Gilderdale’s daughter had contemplated going to the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland. When a first attempt at suicide failed, her mother helped her to end her life. These cases highlight the acute difficulties for prosecutors, judges and juries alike, and add to the pressure for greater clarity in the law.

In his moving and funny Richard Dimbleby lecture the other week, author Terry Pratchett, who has Alzheimer’s disease, made a plea for a common-sense solution. He proposed “some kind of strictly non-­aggressive tribunal that would establish the facts of the case well before the assisted death takes place. The members of the tribunal would be acting for the good of society as well as that of the applicant – horrible word – to ensure they are of sound and informed mind, firm in their purpose, suffering from a life-threatening and incurable disease and not under the ­influence of a third party”. Death, as a character, ­appeared in the first of his splendid Discworld novels, and he said that “he has evolved in the series to be one of its most popular characters; implacable, because that is his job, he appears to have some sneaking regard and compassion for a race of creatures which are to him as ephemeral as mayflies, but which nevertheless spend their brief lives making rules for the universe and counting the stars”. But death always has the last word.

The full text of  MoJ Circular 2010/03, implementing s.59, can be found at: http://www.justice.gov.uk/publications/docs/circular-03-2010-assisting-encouraging-suicide.pdf