One year of enforcement of the law, by Jacqueline Herremans

In another news article you can read about plans to include Article 1-51 in the new constitutional treaty for the European Union.

On the 3rd September the European Parliament voted to omit from an annual report on fundamental rights an article which raised the issue of assisted dying in Europe. The report on fundamental rights in the European Union in 2002 was prepared on the ‘own-initiative’ of the Committee on Citizen’s Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs. Whilst the report is mostly concerned with other human rights issues and abuses, its draft form had contained one article which:

a) Summary

On the 5th September, the Council of Europe’s Committee on Social, Health and Family Affairs voted by a narrow margin to adopt the Report on Euthanasia prepared by Dick Marty.

In the last year, Dignitas in Switzerland has attracted great media coverage, in the UK and in Europe at large, for assisting the suicides of people who are not Swiss citizens.

On 17th June 2003, Mr David Taylor, a Labour/Co-op MP with a Christian Socialist background, introduced a Ten Minute Rule Motion:

On 6th June, Lord Joffe’s Patient (Assisted Dying) Bill was, in keeping with tradition, given an unopposed second reading by members of the House of Lords.

The growing notoriety of Dignitas’ work has prompted members of the Swiss parliament to introduce two Private Member’s Bills to prevent “suicide tourism” to Switzerland. These Bills also threaten the availability of assisted suicide for Swiss citizens.

Following the publication in June of a report by the University of Zurich, the Swiss Senate has decided to put forward a new proposal for a law on euthanasia and assisted suicide.

The University of Zurich’s new report, which forms part of the European Commission-sponsored study of end-of-life decision making in six European countries (see above), examined 3,350 deaths in German-speaking Switzerland and found that half were preceded by an end-of-life decision. Compared with its European neighbours, Switzerland was also found to have the highest number of cases of assisted suicide.

On the 23rd May 2003, Professors Van der Wal and Van der Maas presented their long awaited third report on euthanasia in the Netherlands (also known as the Remmelink report).

On 10th June 2003 NVVE’s psychologist, Martine Cornelisse, was found not guilty of assisting a suicide by the Den Bosch court.

On April 10, 2003, the Groningen courts made the first conviction of a Dutch citizen who is not a practising doctor for assisting a suicide. Mr Willem Muns who works for Stichting De Einder Noord (a society that offers support and information to persons considering voluntary euthanasia) was given a six-months suspended sentence and two years probation (He had spent 50 days in jail before the court-case).