The government’s legal advisers have asked the High Court to “urgently consider” a request by the UN to stop life support treatment being ended for 12-year-old Archie Battersbee.
On Saturday, the government confirmed to Sky News that it was carefully considering correspondence from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, after the UN intervened in the case to apply interim measures on the UK prohibiting any moves to withdraw treatment.
Archie has relied on a machine to breathe since being admitted to hospital on 7 April after being found unconscious at home by his mother in Southend, Essex.
The Government Legal Department further requests that the letter is placed before an out-of-hours judge immediately.
Archie is set to have treatment withdrawn at 2pm on Monday.
Doctors treating him at the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel, east London, say he is brain-stem dead and continued life-support treatment is not in his best interests.
In response to the Government Legal Department letter to the High Court, Ms Dance said: “We are relieved that the Government has taken the UN’s intervention seriously. This was not a ‘request’ but an interim measures injunction from the UN.
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“The anxiety of being told that Archie’s life support will be removed tomorrow at 2pm has been horrific. We are already broken and the not knowing what was going to happen next is excruciating.”
Archie’s mother, Hollie Dance, previously sent a letter to the Health Secretary Steve Barclay urging him to help save her son’s life.
She wrote: “If this happens, this will be an extraordinary cruelty, and a flagrant breach of Archie’s rights as a disabled person”.
Ms Dance said Barts Health NHS Trust, which is treating her son, has handed her details of how medics will withdraw treatment and let the family watch him die.
A High Court judge had ruled that ending treatment is in Archie’s best interests, after reviewing evidence from clinicians and said the boy’s prognosis was “bleak”.
He has not regained consciousness since 7 April and Ms Dance said she believes he may have been taking part in an online challenge.
Archie’s family argue that stopping treatment would be in breach of the UK’s obligations under Articles 10 and 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities, and Article 6 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Children.
These international obligations say states must take all necessary measures to ensure disabled people enjoy equal rights and that governments should do all they can to prevent the deaths of children and young people.
