Suicide Pact

Suicide Pact

Under section 5 of the Homicide Ordinance (Cap. 339), a suicide pact is a common agreement between two or more persons having for its object the death of all of them, whether or not each is to take his own life. However, nothing done by a person is to be treated as done in pursuance of a suicide pact unless it is done while he has the settled intention of dying in pursuance of the pact. This is designed to prevent abuse of the suicide pact defence and to ensure that only parties who genuinely intended to die together may rely on this defence to reduce murder to manslaughter. 

Under section 5(1), where a person, acting in pursuance of a suicide pact between him and another, kills the other or is a party to the other being killed by a third person, the act of commission or participation constitutes manslaughter and not murder. This provision took effect in 1963 and provides a statutory partial defence for cases that would otherwise be found to be murder. 

Under section 5(2), the defence bears the burden of establishing the defence, and the applicable standard of proof is the "balance of probabilities". According to a decision of the Court of Appeal, even where a suicide pact is not part of the defence case, the trial judge must, where the evidence is sufficient to support the defence, leave the issue to the jury and give an appropriate direction. The elements to be proved include: 

• the existence of an agreement between the defendant and the deceased having for its object the death of both; 
• the deceased's voluntary participation in that agreement; 
• that the defendant's killing of the deceased was done in pursuance of that common agreement; and 
• that, at the time of killing the deceased, the defendant had the settled intention of dying in pursuance of that common agreement. 

As regards a survivor who kills the other party under a suicide pact, his offence is manslaughter and not murder, punishable by up to life imprisonment, with the actual sentence to be determined by the court in its discretion. In one Hong Kong case, the court explained that the law punishes the survivor of a suicide pact because such a pact poses a risk of death to all participants, and the survivor's culpability must be carefully assessed. In that case, the defendant was sentenced to 4 years' imprisonment on his plea of guilty. 

Assisting Another to Commit Suicide 

Under section 33B of the Offences against the Person Ordinance (Cap. 212), aiding, abetting, counselling or procuring the suicide of another, or an attempt by another to commit suicide, is a criminal offence punishable by up to 14 years' imprisonment.