GERMANY – Two years of assisted suicide – interim conclusions
24 May 2022
In Germany, repeated and thus professional suicide assistance has been permitted again for over two years now. As expected, opponents’ fears are proven to be unfounded.
On 21 February 2022, the three Germany-based organisations “DIGNITAS-Germany”, “DGHS” and “Verein Sterbehilfe” shared their experiences of the last two years at a press conference (live stream; in German) in Berlin on the occasion of the two-year anniversary of the annulment of Section 217 of the German Criminal Code (StGB); they also presented a catalogue of 10 important points to ensure freedom of choice (“Berlin Appeal 2022: 10 demands for humane assisted suicide in Germany”(available only in German)).
On 26 February 2020, the Federal Constitutional Court had declared void Section 217 of the German Criminal Code, which had been introduced in 2015 and prohibited repeated and thus professional assistance in suicide in Germany. The plaintiffs in Karlsruhe included the two DIGNITAS associations in Switzerland and Germany as well as several persons who were affected by the ban on assisted suicide in their professional or private lives (see also DIGNITAS press release of 26 February 2020 (in English)).
With its judgment, the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe recognised the right to end one’s own life as a human right and as part of any individual’s personal autonomy. Following the judgment, DIGNITAS-Germany and other organisations which had been forced to cease any activities with regard to suicide assistance after 2015, set out to create the structures necessary to inform and advise people in need, to handle requests and to prepare and provide physician-supported suicide assistance.
In 2021, the three organisations DIGNITAS-Germany, DGHS and Verein Sterbehilfe, in addition to providing information to and advising hundreds of individuals, accompanied or arranged a total of nearly 350 assisted suicides in cooperation with doctors. Every suffering person was accompanied professionally, and the events were duly reported to the police. The authorities did not detect any irregularities, which underpins the fact that the existing legal framework provides sufficient protection and that no special legislation on assisted suicide is needed in Germany.
The judgment of the Federal Constitutional Court leaves the Bundestag with the option of creating a regulatory legal framework within which assisted suicide may take place, provided that this framework fully respects the individual’s autonomy in accordance with the court judgment. Although the judges in Karlsruhe by no means called for a law to regulate assisted suicide in detail, several law proposals have since been worked out by various political groups. Within the framework of a pleasantly factual orientation debate (“Orientierungsdebatte”) on 18 May 2022, the members of the Bundestag had the renewed opportunity to express their views on assisted suicide. The discussion on the law proposals is expected to take place in the next few months.
An analysis of the drafts submitted so far gives rise to concerns: All of them aim to restrict to a greater or lesser extent the freedom regained through the Federal Constitutional Court’s judgment. It is essential that a law does not restrict the freedom it pretends to protect. The defenders of self-determination over one’s own end of life and the assisted suicide organisations are prepared, if necessary, to go back to court, to ensure that the freedoms explicitly confirmed in the Constitutional Court’s decision are not again restricted by paternalistic legislation.
