Most popular articles
.jpg "Germany’s criminal court legalized euthanasia")
Germany's top criminal court issued a landmark ruling Friday legalizing assisted suicide in cases where it is carried out based on a patient's prior request.
The ruling came as the court overturned the conviction of a lawyer who had counseled his client in 2007 to stop tube feeding her mother, who had been in a non-responsive coma for five years. A lower court had convicted attorney Wolfgang Putz of attempted manslaughter and given him a nine-month suspended sentence.
The Federal Court of Justice said the 71-year-old woman had said in 2002 that she did not want to be kept alive under such circumstances before falling into the coma.
German Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger welcomed the ruling as a major step toward respecting an individual's wishes. "There can't be forced treatment against a person's will," she said in a statement. "This is about the right of self-determination and therefore a question of a life in human dignity until the end."
Placeholder
Studio One