Decriminalising Assisted Suicide Services: Bundesverfassungsgericht 26 February 2020, 2BvR 2347/15
Govert den Hartogh
Abstract
By striking down 217 of the German Criminal Code, the Second Senate of the Federal Constitutional Court made a landmark decision.It is rare for the decriminalisation of any kind of physician-assisted death to be effectuated by a court decision. 1And although the court leaves it to the lawgiver to design a full regulatory framework for the protection of the possibly affected rights, it binds that framework to some requirements, thereby virtually guaranteeing that it will, arguably, be the most liberal one in the world.It is true that the future German law will still not permit the active ending of a patient's life on his explicit and serious request under any conditions ( 216 German Criminal Code), as the present Dutch and Belgian laws do.But under these laws euthanasia is permitted only if the patient requests it in a voluntary and well-considered way, and is also in a state of unbearable suffering that can only be ended by death.The court, conversely, only wants to impose requirements on the patient's request, not on his condition.The reason for restricting the requirements in this way is that the court finds the justification of physician assistance exclusively in the patient's right to *Emeritus professor of moral philosophy, University of Amsterdam.This paper uses some material from an as yet unpublished book.