The Tragedy of the Archie Battersbee Case
One of the many heart-breaking things about the Archie Battersbee case is that no one really wins in the end. In most legal battles there is a winner and a loser followed by a feeling that at least some semblance of justice has been done.
Here there is only pain and suffering on all sides.
If, as most legal commentators expect, life support is withdrawn from the 12-year-old who has remained unconscious since April, then a boy will have lost his life and parents will have lost a young son.
Even if Battersbee’s parents are successful, what appears to be a legal victory for them will leave their son with no quality of life whatsoever in a state that medical professionals seem to agree is not in the boy’s best interest.
It is also important to remember how difficult this must be for all of the legal professionals involved. The representatives of the family are fighting a difficult battle to keep Battersbee alive, the representatives of the hospital trust are making the heart-breaking argument that ending Battersbee’s life is ultimately the best result for everyone involved, and then the judges are placed in the unenviable position of having to make a decision.
There is clearly no right answer here. From this distance it is easy to say that keeping Battersbee alive is cruel when he is brain dead and the medical professionals say that it is in his best interest to withdraw treatment. Having said that I don’t know if I could be so detached were it my son in that hospital bed.
We can leave the rights and wrongs to the ethicists but there are a number of legal points that I think should be of interest to everyone reading this newsletter.
The first is that this case has taken such a long time. The various appeals and back-and-forth have not shown the justice system in its best light. Of course all of the arguments need to be made before the courts, and it is correct that there should be a right to appeal but, given the subject matter, the more this has dragged on, the more painful it has become for everyone involved.
The second point worth raising is that the legal basis for this latest appeal is a request from a UN Committee. While the request may make a number of salient points and even have a legal basis in the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, it is a treaty that has not been incorporated into UK law and should not therefore make a difference to the decision in this case.
Some comparisons have been made with the interim relief in the recent Rwanda case but that was an intervention by a court based on the rules of that court. This polite request is very different and should not be receiving the extraordinary deference that it seems to be getting from judges.
Finally, whatever the outcome of this case, there will need to be a review into the online safety of children. Battersbee’s mother claims that the boy was taking part in something called the ‘blackout challenge’ that was popular on TikTok. The injuries suffered seem to match up with that trend and it will make this whole affair so much more of a tragedy if it transpires that Battersbee died as a result of such a stupid fad.
The Online Safety Bill, in its current form, is a mess and fails to address wide range of issues, while using a sledgehammer to crack a nut in other areas. It must be looked at again so that our legislation is robust enough to do everything it can to stop something like this ever happening again.
In the podcast this week we have an employment law case that looks at how holiday pay should be calculated for part-year workers. The decision will have implications across a range of industries.
Episode link: http://uklawweekly.com/2022-uksc-21/
Make a difference today,
Marcus