The demand for active assistance to die by Chantal Sébire rejected

The decision on whether to grant the right to an active assistance in dying is not within the purview of justice but of the legislature. It is the sense of rejection by the Tribunal de Grande Instance de Dijon, Monday, March 17, the complaint exceptional Chantal Sébire, aged 52, suffers from an incurable disease, which had requested the right to prescribe Product lethal to die. While considering that the approach of Mrs Sébire "humanly possible" and that his "physical degradation deserves compassion," the vice-chairman of the tribunal, Jean-Rene Jaillet, said that "the judge in the state of the law France can only reject his application. " Ms. Sébire should not be used. In its order, the judge said that Ms. Jaillet Sébire "decided, and it is perfectly his right, lie outside the context of the current legislation on the end of life, rejecting the option of" letting die " (artificial coma, cessation of nutrition and hydration) established by the Act of 2005 Leonetti. He believes, however, that the request of the patient to "choose the moment of his death" by absorbing a dose of pentothal a doctor prescribed him "could not legally in the state of the law, prosper." The magistrate based on the concept of the right to life, enshrined in the European Convention of Human Rights, on the code of medical ethics and the criminal code. The right to life. In her complaint, Ms. Sébire, supported by Mr. Gilles Antonowicz, argued that the European Convention recognizes the right of every person to life (Article 2) and freedom (Article 5), "which means that if life is a right, it can not be regarded as an obligation, which constitutes an obstacle to freedom. " The judge Jaillet felt on the contrary that "it is not possible to infer Article 2 of a right to die, either with the hands of another person or with the assistance of a public authority". The judge relied on the Pretty judgement of the European Court of Human Rights (April 29, 2002), the name of a British woman who had lodged an appeal against his country after being refused the right to assisted suicide. The ECHR had been dismissed by arguing that "it does not seem arbitrary that the law reflects the importance of the right to life by prohibiting assisted suicide." The medical ethics. The judge Jaillet asserts that the request of Ms. Sébire opposes the code of ethics. It states that "the doctor does not have the right to deliberately cause death." In his complaint, Mr. Antonowicz believed him, a doctor, applying the law Leonetti (stop treatment at the request of the patient, can shorten the life), rather than "let" his patient, " it helped "instead actively." For lawyers, we can not accept this wider view of the law Leonetti. "Arguably, it's the same thing in moral terms, but in legal terms, no," explains Frédérique Dreifuss-Netter, a law professor at the University Descartes-Paris-V and member of the National Ethics Advisory Committee. The legislature has chosen to place the cursor at that specific location in medical legitimizing certain attitudes that lead to death without cause directly. " The penal code. For the judge, the application of Ms. Sébire fall under Article 223-13 of the Criminal Code, which punishes "provocation to suicide". That argument leaves perplexed lawyers: they argue that suicide is not a crime, assisted suicide should not be penalized. "If a doctor gave a lethal product to a person who wishes to commit suicide, the only possible criminality seems to be the crime of failing to assist a person in danger", said Ms. Dreifuss-Netter. "The judge has sought a criminal offence to say that was within the scope of an action subject to prosecution, for its part believes Dominica Thouvenin, a law professor at the University Diderot-Paris-VII. Putting an end to the deliberate life someone is a homicide. It is not enough that the person is an understanding that this is a justification. " For lawyers, the law french, the demand for active assistance to die Mrs Sébire can only go unanswered. "The order of the judge is demonstrating that the law Leonetti has limits and that it will not solve all the cases, analysis Mrs. Dreifuss-Netter. It does not, such an individual patient incurable, which we neither is at the end of life, nor ventilated or artificially fed, to control his death. Should, however, change the law to go further? This is the legislature alone to decide. " Determined to put an end to his life, said Ms. Sébire, Sunday, March 16, she could obtain a lethal product abroad. Pete Hoebeke, a doctor at the University Hospital of Ghent in Flanders, has been officially invited to come to be euthanized in Belgium.