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Abstract
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BACKGROUND: In its ruling from 7 March 2017 (3 C 19/15) regarding a case from 2005, the Federal Administrative Court affirmed the possibility of a legal entitlement for permission to acquire a narcotic agent with suicidal intent. Issue: The (constitutional) legal assessment and discussion of the consequences of the ruling for the future.
METHODS: Examination of the reasoning of the judgement on the basis of the current fundamental rights of the individual, in particular the principle of proportionality, and critical examination of the actual assumption of the court against the background of palliative medicine as well as the "right to die" now confirmed by the Supreme Court.
RESULTS: The reasoning of the ruling corresponds to the modern dogma of fundamental rights. The prohibition of the purchase of narcotic agents for the purpose of suicide represents an encroachment on the personal rights (art. 2 para. 1 in association with 1 para. 1 of the German Constitution) that is fundamentally justified; however, the justification of the prohibition does not apply in the case of unbearable suffering, where the individual concerned has "no other reasonable means of realising the desire to die". Palliative medicine, however, offers a legal option for precisely these "reasonable means".
CONCLUSION: After the Federal Court of Justice in its rulings of 25 June 2010 (2 StR 454/09) and 17 September 2014 (XII ZB 202/13) confirmed the rights of the individual under penal and guardianship law to the "right to die", this can be facilitated via palliative medicine without the need to recourse to narcotic agents for the purpose of suicide. The perspective of the Federal Administrative Court for the year 2005 can therefore no longer be legally or factually upheld today. In future there is consequently no further requirement for permission to acquire narcotic agents for the purpose of suicide. © 2018, Springer Medizin Verlag GmbH, ein Teil von Springer Nature.
Language: de |