Plain language law

New Zealand law explained for everyone

Crimes Act 1961

Crimes against the person - Murder, manslaughter, etc

180: Suicide pact

You could also call this:

“When people agree to die together, it's not called murder if someone survives.”

If you and someone else make a plan to die together, it’s called a suicide pact. If you kill the other person as part of this plan, you’re not guilty of murder. Instead, you’re guilty of manslaughter, which has a less severe punishment.

If two or more people make a suicide pact and one or more of them die, but you survive, you can go to prison for up to 5 years. This is called being a party to a death under a suicide pact. However, you won’t be charged with helping or encouraging suicide.

A suicide pact means an agreement between two or more people to die together. It doesn’t matter if each person plans to take their own life or not. But for your actions to count as part of the pact, you must have a firm plan to die when you do those actions.

If you’re charged with murder in a suicide pact case, it’s your job to prove that you should be charged with manslaughter instead. You also have to prove if you shouldn’t be charged with helping or encouraging suicide.

If someone else who wasn’t part of your suicide pact helped with the death, they might still be charged with murder. The fact that you’re charged with manslaughter doesn’t change this.

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View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM329348.

Topics:
Crime and justice > Criminal law
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179: Aiding and abetting suicide, or

“Helping or encouraging someone to end their own life is against the law and can be punished.”

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181: Concealing dead body of child, or

“Hiding a baby's body to keep its birth a secret is against the law.”

Part 8 Crimes against the person
Murder, manslaughter, etc

180Suicide pact

  1. Every one who in pursuance of a suicide pact kills any other person is guilty of manslaughter and not of murder, and is liable accordingly.

  2. Where 2 or more persons enter into a suicide pact, and in pursuance of it 1 or more of them kills himself or herself, any survivor is guilty of being a party to a death under a suicide pact contrary to this subsection and is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 5 years; but he or she shall not be convicted of an offence against section 179.

  3. For the purposes of this section the term suicide pact means a common agreement between 2 or more persons having for its object the death of all of them, whether or not each is to take his or her own life; but nothing done by a person who enters into a suicide pact shall be treated as done by him or her in pursuance of the pact unless it is done while he or she has the settled intention of dying in pursuance of the pact.

  4. It shall be for the person charged to prove that by virtue of subsection (1) he or she is not liable to be convicted of murder, or that by virtue of subsection (2) he or she is not liable to be convicted of an offence against section 179.

  5. The fact that by virtue of this section any person who in pursuance of a suicide pact has killed another person has not been or is not liable to be convicted of murder shall not affect the question whether the homicide amounted to murder in the case of a third person who is a party to the homicide and is not a party to the suicide pact.

Compare
  • Homicide Act 1957 s 4 (UK)