The widow of right-to-die campaigner Tony Nicklinson has taken his fight to the European Court of Human Rights.

Jane Nicklinson, from Melksham, has formally lodged an application in her own right and on behalf of her late husband.

The mother-of-two is arguing that the UK violated their human rights because MPs have not debated assisted dying.

Top UK judges had previously said it was for Parliament to consider legalising assisted dying or see the courts stepping in.

In a landmark ruling last summer, the Supreme Court concluded that it had the power to declare a 50-year-old law criminalising acts actively helping someone to take their own life "incompatible" with human rights.

Lord Neuberger, president of the Supreme Court, said that if MPs and peers did not give serious consideration to legalising assisted suicide, there was a "real prospect" a future legal challenge would succeed.

Mr Nicklinson, who suffered from locked-in syndrome, died in 2012 aged 58 - days after losing a High Court case to allow doctors to end his life.

The civil engineer was paralysed from the neck down following a stroke in 2005 and described his life as a "living nightmare".

He could only communicate using a special computer which tracked his eye movements, and consistently said he wanted to die.

But because he would need a doctor to administer a lethal injection, the former rugby player was unable to even travel to Switzerland for assisted dying, and he mounted a long legal challenge to overturn centuries-old laws on murder and manslaughter.

Mrs Nicklinson, who took up her husband's campaign following his death, is now taking her fight to the European Court of Human Rights.

Her lawyer, Saimo Chahal, who also represents paralysed former builder Paul Lamb, said the Supreme Court had breached Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights by refusing to decide on the compatibility of the existing law on assisted dying.

"Jane has had no option but to take her fight to the European Court because the majority of the Supreme Court decided to refer the matter to Parliament rather than grappling with the issue themselves," Ms Chahal said.

"Notwithstanding that it was complicated and contentious they should have grasped the nettle.

"It does not look as if Parliament are likely any time soon to review the ban on assisted dying and so Jane has lodged her application in Strasbourg."

In October, the Director of Public Prosecutions said the law on assisted suicide in the UK did not offer "immunity against prosecution" and the likelihood of health care professionals being prosecuted depends on their "specific and professional duty of care to the person in question".

It is thought that Lord Falconer's Bill on Assisted Dying, which has been debated in the House of Lords, will run out of time to become law before the general election.

Senior figures including Lord Carey of Clifton, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu have previously come out in favour of a change in the law on the right to die.