Leipzig, July 3, 2019 – Today, Wednesday, the Federal Court of Justice (BGH) made a landmark decision in favor of assisted suicide until death. Gita Neumann, member of the Executive Committee of the Humanist Association of Germany, was present and expressly welcomed the ruling: “We have had to wait a long time for this very important ruling: It finally overrules a completely outdated and absurd ruling by the Federal Court of Justice from 1984 on the unconditional duty to rescue voluntarily capable suicides when they lose consciousness. Since then, this has hung like a sword of Damocles over every assisted suicide.”
The case heard today involved the two doctors Dr. Turowski and Dr. Spittler. Dr. Turowski had assisted the suicide of a terminally ill woman in Berlin in 2013, while Dr. Spittler was present when two sick, elderly senior citizens in Hamburg died of their own volition in 2012. Both doctors assisted the dying of their patients without initiating life-saving measures after they had become unconscious.
Bild: Frank SpadeFollowing today’s ruling by the Federal Court of Justice, the acquittals of the two doctors are lawful and the appeals by the public prosecutor’s office against the corresponding rulings by the Berlin and Hamburg Regional Courts were dismissed.
According to Neumann, the BGH ruling could also have a signal effect in another matter: Although the current BGH ruling is independent of the constitutionally controversial Section 217 of the German Criminal Code, which was only introduced in 2015 and punishes assisted suicide in advance, “it could send a signal to the Federal Constitutional Court that there is an urgent need for liberal regulation in Germany instead of further criminalization”.
The statements of the Humanist Association of Germany on the constitutional complaints against § 217 StGB can be found here can be found here.
