SUICIDE ASSISTANCE FOR MENTALLY DISORDERED INDIVIDUALS IN SWITZERLAND AND THE STATE'S POSITIVE OBLIGATION TO FACILITATE DIGNIFIED SUICIDE: Haas c. Suisse, Cour europeenne des droits de l'homme, 1re section (20 janvier 2011) (Unreported)

Abstract

In principle, any individual in Switzerland may assist the suicide of another, provided that the assistance is not selfishly motivated.2 Moreover, the lawfulness of suicide assistance is not contingent on any particular status of the individual who dies (for example, whether he is terminally ill), although he must have capacity in order for the final act to be considered suicide.3 However, no great variation among assistors and the assisted is observable in Switzerland: in almost all cases, assisted suicide takes place with the involvement of a physician and a ‘right to die’ organisation,4 and the individual who dies suffers from a recognised medical condition.5 However, additional regulation applies to physician-assisted suicide (PAS). Federal narcotics law permits physicians only to administer, dispense, or prescribe fast-acting barbiturates (the preferred lethal medication for assisted suicide) within the limits of accepted professional and scientific practice.6 This requirement is reiterated in Cantonal health law.7 In 1999, the Zurich Administrative Court held that PAS would only accord with accepted practice for conditions ‘indisputably leading to death’.8 Similarly, guidance issued in 2004 by the Swiss Academy of Medical Sciences (SAMS) sets as one precondition for PAS that ‘[t]he patient's disease justifies the assumption that he is approaching the end of life’.9