Canton of Zurich: The cantonal popular initiative “Self-determination at the end of life, also in retirement and nursing homes” has reached the required number of signatures
21 November 2023
On 1 November 2023, representatives of the initiative’s committee, of which DIGNITAS is a member, submitted almost 13,000 signatures collected within a very short time in support of the cantonal popular initiative “Self-determination at the end of life, also in retirement and nursing homes” to the Directorate of Justice and Home Affairs of the Canton of Zurich. A total of 6,000 signatures were required.
The initiative demands that seriously ill and suffering individuals who wish to make use of assisted suicide should be allowed to do so in their own home (retirement home or care institution) and that this right should be enshrined in law.
The popular initiative was started after an (extremely narrow) decision by the Zurich Cantonal Council, on 31 October 2022, to oblige only homes with a public service mandate to allow assisted suicide on their premises. With this decision, the previous and legally unacceptable situation was inserted in the Zurich Health Act. However, residents of privately run care facilities still have no guarantee that they will be able to exercise their right to a self-determined end of life at the place where they live. Anyone who wishes to make use of assisted suicide in a private care home may therefore still have to leave the home and look for another location.
This is unlawful and violates basic constitutional rights. Any institution which receives public funding is obliged to grant such rights. Several years ago, the Swiss Federal Supreme Court ruled that the rights of individuals – i.e., residents of a care facility – are to be weighted higher than the ideological views of the organisation that runs the facility in which the individual resides.
The Zurich Cantonal Council will vote on the initiative in the foreseeable future. If it does not find a majority, the proposal will be put to a people’s vote.
DIGNITAS is also campaigning in other cantons for the right of residents of all retirement and nursing homes to have the choice to end their lives self-determinedly and professionally supported in their own four walls if they wish so. So far, this right has been enshrined in law in a few cantons.
More information on the popular initiative in the canton of Zurich: https://selbstbestimmung-auch-im-heim.ch/ (in German)
