The parents of brain-damaged 12-year-old Archie Battersby have failed to persuade the Supreme Court to intervene in the fight for life support treatment.
The little boy has been in an unconscious state since he was found unconscious with his head tied on April 7.
Archie’s mother and father, Holly Dance and Paul Battersby, had asked Supreme Court judges for more time to continue their fight after a court ruled earlier this week that their ventilators could be legally turned off. .
They wanted Supreme Court justices to stop hospital owners from withholding life-support treatment until they had time to apply to the United Nations, and made a written application.
But this afternoon three judges rejected his application on Thursday.
“Archie Battersby’s parents filed their application to appeal to the Supreme Court today,” a Supreme Court spokesman said in a statement.
“They were seeking a stay of the Court of Appeal’s decision to allow the withdrawal of life support treatment from their child.
“Aware of the urgency of the matter, the court convened a panel of three judges who considered the submissions of the parties ‘on paper’ in the usual manner.
“After careful consideration of the decision of the Appellate Court … the panel has refused permission to appeal to the Supreme Court.”
Archie’s parents say the United Nations has a protocol in place that allows “individuals and families” to complain about violations of the rights of people with disabilities.
He says the United Nations can ask the UK government to delay withdrawing life support to Archie while a complaint is investigated.
Three Court of Appeals judges on Monday upheld the decision of a High Court judge who ruled that doctors could legally stop treating Archie.
Lawyers representing Archie’s parents had asked the judges of the appeal to allow time to consider an application to the European Court of Human Rights (EHCR) in Strasbourg, France, to halt the termination of treatment.
Appeals judges put a stay on the termination of treatment, saying Archie’s parents may have until 2 p.m. Thursday to apply to a European court.
The PA news agency understands that no order passed by Court of Appeals judges will prevent Archie’s parents from applying to the United Nations.
Archie’s parents are being supported by a campaign group called the Christian Legal Center.
A spokesman for the center has indicated that Archie’s parents wanted to approach the United Nations rather than a European court.
“The UK has joined the Optional Protocol to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which gives individuals the right to complain about any violations of the Convention to the UN Committee,” he said.
“The committee has previously criticized the UK system of authorizing the withdrawal of life support from people with disabilities based on a court’s determination of their best interests rather than their own will.”
Lawyers representing Archie’s parents argued in their Supreme Court application that by prohibiting only one application under the ECHR, the Court of Appeals had wrongly accused them of “transferring one international human rights process to another.” pressured not to adopt”.
Doctors treating Archie at the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel, east London, think he is brain-stem dead and say it is not in his best interest to continue life-saving treatment.
The owners of the hospital’s governing trust, Barts Health NHS Trust, were asked to make a decision on what medical steps were in Archie’s best interest.
A High Court judge, Mrs. Justice Arbuthnot, initially considered the case and concluded that Archie was dead.
But the judges of the Court of Appeal upheld the challenge by her parents against the decisions taken by Mrs. Justice Arbuthnot and held that the evidence should be reviewed by another judge of the High Court.