Section 178: Killing under a suicide pact is manslaughter, not murder

(1)It shall be manslaughter and shall not be murder for a person acting in pursuance of a suicide pact between him or her and another person to kill the other or be a party to the other killing himself or herself or being killed by a third person.

(2)Where it is shown that a person charged with the murder of another person killed the other or was a party to the other’s killing himself or herself or being killed, it shall be for the defence to prove that the person charged was acting in pursuance of a suicide pact between him or her and the other.

(3)For the purposes of this section, “suicide pact” means 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 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.