Lawyers for terminally-ill woman Marie Fleming says she has a Constitutional right to decide to terminate your own life.

The 58-year-old mother of 2, who has multiple sclerosis, is challenging the law which criminalises assisted suicide.

The former UCD lecturer needs help to fulfil her wish of dying peacefully in the arms of her long-term partner Tom Curran at their home in Arklow in Co. Wicklow.

However she is afraid that if he offers assistance he may be prosecuted under Section 2.2 of the Criminal Law Suicide Act of 1993.

'Law not applied equally'

The former UCD lecturer claims the provision is unconstitutional and incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights as it breaches her rights to privacy, autonomy and dignity.

Today her legal team are arguing that if the law is in place to protect the common good in discouraging suicide, it is not being applied equally as able-bodied people are free from legal sanction.

They are trying to prove she has a right to decide to terminate her own life event though it is a right not expressly stated in the Constitution.