50 Inciting or assisting suicide Any person who incites, induces, aids, counsels, procures or provides the means for the suicide or attempted suicide of another person, knowing that the other person intends to commit suicide or realising that there is a real risk or possibility that the other person may commit suicide, shall be guilty of inciting or assisting suicide and liable to a fine up to or exceeding level fourteen, or imprisonment for life or any shorter period, or both such fine and such imprisonment. 51 Time of commencement of life and time of death (1) For the purposes of this Part, life shall be deemed to have commenced when a newly-born child has breathed, whether or not it has an independent circulation at that time and whether or not it is entirely separated from the body of its mother. (2) For the purposes of this Part, the time of a person’s death shall be deemed to be (a) except in the case referred to in paragraph (b), when there has been an irreversible cessation of the person’s heart-lung functions; or (b) where the person has been installed on a heart-lung or ventilator machine or other life-support system, when a competent medical practitioner, after carrying out appropriate tests, diagnoses and confirms that brain death has occurred. 52 Accelerating death equivalent to causing it For the purposes of this Part, a person shall be deemed to have caused the death of another person if he or she accelerates a death that would have occurred as a result of other independent causes. 53 Causing death: guidelines (1) In deciding whether or not there is a causal link between a person’s conduct and the death of another person, a court shall be guided by the following factors in addition to any others that are relevant in the particular case (a) a subsequent event which is abnormal, that is to say, which is unlikely in the light of human experience to follow the conduct, may be regarded as breaking the causal link unless it was planned or anticipated by the person responsible for the conduct; (b) where the result of the conduct was to inflict a mortal or serious injury upon the other person, there is normally a causal link between the conduct and the other person’s death; (c) voluntary conduct on the part of the person who subsequently dies is more likely than involuntary subsequent conduct on the part of that person to break the causal link between the conduct and his or her death; (d) it is within the range of ordinary human experience that particular persons may suffer from ailments or physical susceptibilities which make them more liable than other persons to die from assaults or from other unlawful conduct. (2) For the avoidance of doubt it is declared that a person will be held to have caused the death of another person if death results from a failure to discharge a legal duty owed by the first-mentioned person to the secondmentioned person. 54 Mercy killing and removal of persons from life-support systems (1) Subject to this section, it shall be no defence to a charge of murder, infanticide, culpable homicide or inciting or assisting suicide that (a) the person charged with the crime acted or omitted to act, as the case may be, in order to relieve suffering; or (b) the deceased person requested that his or her life should be ended; but a court may take any such factor into account in deciding upon an appropriate sentence. (2) The High Court may, on application, order that a person be removed from a heart -lung or ventilator machine or other life-support system, if the court is satisfied, from the evidence of at least one medical practitioner, other than any medical practitioner who has been treating the person, that (a) the person is unconscious and there is no reasonable prospect of his or her regaining consciousness; and (b) although the person’s brain functions may not have entirely ceased, his or her life is being artificially sustained by the machine or system and there is no reasonable prospect that he or she will ever be able to survive without being on the machine or system. (3) An application in terms of subsection (2) may be made (a) by a spouse, brother, sister, parent, guardian, curator or tutor of the person referred to in subsection (2); or (b) by the person in charge of the hospital or other institution in which the person referred to in subsection (2) is being kept. (4) In an application in terms of subsection (2), the court (a) may appoint a curator ad litem to represent the interests of the person referred to in subsection (2); and