The Scottish Parliament’s decision to reject the Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill marked a significant moment in the long running debate over assisted dying. Following a deeply impassioned debate on Tuesday 17 March 2026, the Bill was defeated by 69 votes to 57, with one abstention.
Liam McArthur’s Bill underwent detailed committee scrutiny and faced extensive amendment in response to concerns around vulnerability, prognosis, and medical safeguards. Its rejection therefore carries particular weight. This was not an early rejection in principle. This difficult decision was reached after sustained scrutiny and the conscious judgement of individual parliamentarians not to change the law.
As a result of this historic decision, assisted dying in Scotland continues to fall within the framework of the existing law. That outcome reinforces the importance of understanding how Scots criminal law, in particular, approaches conduct connected with another person’s death.
Criminal law framework in Scotland
Unlike England and Wales, where assisting suicide is a specific statutory offence under section 2(1) of the Suicide Act 1961, Scotland has no equivalent statutory offence framed in those terms. This is sometimes mischaracterised as a gap in the law, but one might argue that it reflects a deliberate structural feature of Scots criminal law.
Scots law does not criminalise “assistance” as such. Instead, it asks whether an individual’s conduct can properly be characterised as causing the death of another person, with the requisite degree of culpability. Liability therefore arises, if at all, through the general law of homicide, namely murder or culpable homicide, rather than through a discrete offence of assisted suicide.
While suicide itself is not criminal in Scotland, third party involvement may attract criminal liability where conduct can be said to be the immediate and direct cause of another person’s death. The absence of a statutory scheme authorising assisted dying means there is no regulated or protected framework within which such assistance can lawfully be provided.
Causation and responsibility
Criminal liability in this context does not turn solely on who performs the final act. Scots criminal law focuses on causation, rather than factors such as physical proximity, presence, or the formality of the involvement. A person need not administer medication or be present at the moment of death for their conduct to raise questions of criminal responsibility. What matters is whether that conduct can properly be said to have caused, accelerated, or materially contributed to the death.
This point becomes clear when considering situations often discussed in the wider assisted‑dying debate. For example, whether a person who accompanies a loved one to Dignitas in Switzerland, a jurisdiction in which assisted dying is lawful, incurs criminal liability in Scotland will depend entirely on whether their actions can be characterised as an immediate and direct cause of the death. Simply accompanying someone, or assisting with travel arrangements, may fall short of establishing the requisite causal connection, even where the ultimate act of ending life was foreseeable. However, this assessment is always highly fact‑specific. The decisive question is not foreseeability alone, but whether the individual’s conduct can properly be said to have materially contributed to the death in law.
Questions of causation in analogous contexts have been considered by the High Court of Justiciary in cases involving the supply or administration of lethal substances. In MacAngus v HM Advocate and Kane v HM Advocate (2009 JC 203, [2009] HCJAC 8), the court emphasised that causation is a fact‑sensitive inquiry, and that a deliberate decision by an adult to ingest a substance does not necessarily break the chain of causation. Much depends on the nature and extent of the involvement.
In Ross v Lord Advocate [2016] CSIH 12, Lord Carloway observed that where an adult with full capacity freely and voluntarily consumes a drug with the intention of ending their life, voluntary ingestion will normally, though not invariably, break the causal chain. Again, the precise allocation of responsibility remains a matter of fact and circumstance in each case.
Taken together, these authorities reflect a broader principle of Scots criminal law: it is not concerned with “assistance” in the abstract, but with whether conduct meets the legal requirements of homicide. Causation remains a detailed, case‑by‑case inquiry, turning on contribution, intention, and materiality rather than on proximity, presence, or the emotional role of the individuals involved.
Prosecutorial discretion
Questions have been raised as to whether offence-specific prosecution guidance should be developed to provide greater clarity in cases involving assisted dying. Those questions may well re-emerge in the wake of this Bill.
In Ross, the petitioner sought judicial review of the Lord Advocate’s refusal to publish guidance identifying the factors that would be considered when deciding whether to prosecute conduct connected with assisted suicide in Scotland. The Inner House rejected the challenge, holding that existing Scots criminal law, together with the general prosecution policy framework, provided sufficient legal certainty for the purposes of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
Ross was not a substantive criminal law case. It did not define the scope of criminal liability, nor did it create any protected category of assistance. Rather, it confirmed that decisions in this area continue to be governed by established principles applied through prosecutorial discretion.
Academic commentary has observed that while Ross did not clarify the substantive scope of the criminal law, it nonetheless illustrates why offence-specific guidance equivalent to that issued by the Director of Public Prosecutions in England and Wales has not been adopted in Scotland. In a system where liability arises only if conduct can properly be characterised as homicide, guidance directed at assisting suicide risks implying a legal category that Scots law does not recognise – at least not yet.
Compassion, motivation and liability
Motivation may be relevant to the exercise of prosecutorial discretion, but it does not displace the core question of causation. Compassion, however genuine, does not remove criminal liability where the legal threshold is met.
Where an individual intentionally ends another person’s life, a charge of murder or culpable homicide may arise depending on the presence of wicked intent or reckless conduct. Assertions that particular forms of assistance, such as indirect support or facilitation, will not attract criminal liability cannot be stated categorically in Scots law. The central question remains whether the conduct in issue can properly be said to have caused, accelerated, or materially contributed to death.
Vulnerability and end-of-life decisions
Questions about vulnerability and coercion were central to the recent parliamentary debate and are relevant to understanding the criminal law position.
Coercion need not be explicit. Subtle pressure, emotional dependence, or a perceived sense of burden may all shape decisions at the end of life. Scots criminal law can scrutinise these influences, and where they are present, the conduct of those involved may attract close examination. In the absence of statutory authorisation, there remains no protected legal space for third party involvement in another person’s death.
The law does, however, draw distinctions between deliberate acts causing death and clinically justified end-of-life decisions. It has been recognised, in the context of assessing homicide, that medically justified withdrawal of life support may involve no criminal responsibility.
Elsewhere in the U.K.
The Scottish position must also be understood in its wider U.K. context. In England and Wales, assisting suicide remains a specific statutory offence under section 2(1) of the Suicide Act 1961, punishable by up to fourteen years’ imprisonment. At the same time, assisted dying is the subject of active legislative debate south of the border, with the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill having progressed through the House of Commons but now stalled at committee stage in the House of Lords.
In R (Purdy) v Director of Public Prosecutions [2009] UKHL 45, the House of Lords required the Director of Public Prosecutions to promulgate offence specific guidance identifying factors relevant to decisions about prosecution in assisted suicide cases, in order to satisfy Article 8’s requirement that interferences be in accordance with the law.
In Scotland, no equivalent guidance has been produced by the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service. Decisions here continue to be governed by the general prosecution policy framework and the application of established principles of Scots criminal law.
Conclusion
The rejection of the Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill does not end the debate. It does, however, reaffirm an existing legal position. In Scotland, assisted dying remains a matter for criminal law rather than regulation. Until Parliament decides otherwise, involvement in another person’s death will continue to be assessed through established principles of causation, culpability, intention, and responsibility.
These issues are not confined to academic debate. They surface at some of the most difficult points in people’s lives, when individuals and families are already confronting loss, uncertainty, and the limits of medical care. Looking ahead, any renewed discussion of legislative reform or prosecutorial guidance will need to be approached with care, humility, and a clear understanding of the human realities at stake. As Scotland considers future options, ensuring a framework that promotes clarity, compassion, and dignity will be essential.
Solicitor
0141 307 1064
