2023-11-28 17:55:52
Can the freedom to choose one’s death be considered an integral part of human rights? This is the question underlying the hearing held on Tuesday 28 November by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in theKarsai case against Hungary.
The applicant, Daniel Karsai, is a 46-year-old Hungarian lawyer who has suffered since July 2021 from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), an incurable neurodegenerative pathology, better known as Charcot disease. This disease causes the progressive loss of muscular control until total paralysis and death by suffocation, while the patient keeps his intellectual abilities intact.
A right to “choose one’s death”
Today, Daniel Karsai can no longer walk or take care of himself without help. Ultimately, he fears being “imprisoned in one’s own body” and wishes to end his days, before finding himself in this state which he judges ” intolerable “.
Except that Hungarian law prohibits euthanasia and assisted suicide. Hence the request filed by Daniel Karsai with the international jurisdiction guarantor of the European Convention on Human Rights of 1950 signed by the member states of the Council of Europe, numbering 46 today.
To assert what he considers to be his right to “choose his death”, he invokes Article 3 of this convention which prohibits inhuman and degrading treatment, Article 8 which protects the right to respect for private life and family, article 9 which guarantees freedom of thought, conscience and religion and, finally, article 14 which prohibits all discrimination.
Consistent case law
Daniel Karsai also complains of being prevented from going to a country which authorizes assisted suicide, because a provision of the Hungarian Penal Code allows the prosecution of any person who has committed a criminal act against one of its nationals and therefore demands that Hungary is required to offer him the opportunity to end his life “with dignity”.
Will the ECHR grant his request? This would be a first. Of the ten cases examined over the last twenty years, European jurisprudence has always been consistent: it establishes that it is up to each State to legalize or not euthanasia and/or assisted suicide, provided that the legal framework is capable of ensuring respect for the right to life (art. 2) in the name of protecting the most vulnerable. At the same time, it recognizes that the right to choose one’s death is part of respect for private life (Haas judgment, January 2011).
A renunciation of fundamental principles
A fragile balance that some interpret as a progressive renunciation of the fundamental principles enshrined in the Convention on Human Rights. “For the judges of the ECHR, respect for human life and the defense of the intrinsic dignity of man are no longer supreme values since they can be weighed against the freedom of the individual and a subjective vision of dignity. Which is contrary to the spirit and letter of the Convention as conceived by its drafters. supports jurist Grégor Puppinck, director of the European Center for Law and Justice, a pro-life Christian association.
We will know if these fears are borne out in the Hungarian case, the judgment of which is expected in a few months.
#die #European #justice