With careful steps, but without help, the elderly gentleman moved to the lectern. Lawyers, death assistants, and politicians had spoken before him.
But what the 85-year-old complainant had to say, with an age-old yet firm voice, was as banned by the four men and women in the bench as he was by any other speaker before or after him.
"As it has not always happened to me now," Horst L. confessed. "The power to persevere was drawn from the fact that I knew I could, if necessary, signal the end myself." That he had been given the "go-ahead" by an euthanasia association, which was the placet of having a mix of lethal drugs delivered at all times. He simply does not want to "come into dependence on the processes he has to accept without being able to act actively".
However, since the legislature has outlawed this aid to commit suicide, it is the "serenity and relief" he had felt before "gone".
But as it stands, Horst L. soon gets the go-ahead from the Constitutional Court. Paragraph 217, which since the end of 2015 criminalized the "business promotion of suicide", is unlikely to last. Presumably, the judges will suggest that the policy of assisting suicide in the future depends on someone having given in-depth advice, such as the abortion paragraph 218, which is not quite random in the criminal code next; or that a committee of experts has examined the dying person. However, the strict ban will most likely tip over.
Many opponents have their say
For more than three years suicide-seeking plaintiff Horst L. had been waiting for the trial. Two of his co-applicants have since died, one could not come to Karlsruhe for health reasons. Another plaintiff, a doctor, who claims to have provided euthanasia in more than 200 cases before the legal ban, committed suicide on Friday before the trial, after a serious illness.
Already in the apron many had wondered, why predominantly physicians and scientists were invited to the hearing, which were rather considered as opponents of suicide assistance. But if a site in Karlsruhe is listened to in such detail, that is rather a bad sign for them. After the two-day trial it was clear: The Senate under the leadership of the court president Andreas Voßkuhle simply did not want to expose himself to the suspicion that he had not heard a significant vote from the group of prohibition supporters.
In the process, representatives of the medical profession, psychiatrists and members of the Bundestag honestly endeavored to explain how difficult it is to comply with a person's desire to die only because of his will: because he is often clouded by mental illness, and especially because of older people It could also be characterized by the attitude of not wanting to burden anyone - up to the danger that relatives could build up pressure.
By the afternoon of the second day of the trial, the constitutional judges had not really dealt with the legal issues. Then, in the last three and a half hours of trial, the Constitutional Court judges made it clear that they hold the "fundamental right to suicide" higher than any concerns.
Small but relevant group
Are the small group of those who wanted to put an end to their lives self-determined, free of external pressure and mental illnesses, really so "relevant that we have to risk that the other group is under more pressure?" That asked the CDU parliamentarian Michael Brand, one of the initiators of the law, the judges.
Yes, Voßkuhle told him. If you follow the experts, in addition to the applicant L. after all counted "a few hundred people in Germany." There is thus a "relevant group", which imagines that a suicide "civilized and civilized" is possible, but that is currently "very difficult to achieve".
That the legislature wants to prevent a "social normalization" of suicide, so from the "moral point of view". However, according to Voßkuhle, "constitutionally" is precisely the suicide "behavior protected by fundamental rights", and thus it is actually "the task of the legislator to create a framework in which this is possible". Here, however, the state specifically restricts those who want to exercise their basic right to suicide.
The negotiation has yet shown, "what options there are, what free spaces, despite prohibition," said the CDU MP Brand. That a doctor could help in a particular case, but not if he generally agrees to it. It's just like suicide help: "A normal doctor does not do that."
Then Voßkuhle dry: "Yes, just." If you forbid a certain "modality" of suicide, "then I forbid what is crucial." That makes the "intervention difficult", but there must be "good reasons".
However, the constitutional judges were obviously unable to recognize them. The fact that in countries in which assisted suicide was released, the general suicide rate increased, the judges impressed little. This is, according to Voßkuhle, "just a sign that more people are making use of their fundamental right".
"Mild construction" with advice and controls
The other constitutional judges also expressed themselves almost through the bank. Liberally well-known Judge Johannes Masing accused the deputies: "They want to protect autonomy by taking the opportunity to exercise them". Ultimately, it's all about showing, "We will not tolerate that." Masing had come by lot to the Senate, as a replacement for Peter Müller (CDU). The former Saarland Prime Minister Müller had been declared biased because of his commitment to an euthanasia ban.
"What remains?" Constitutional Court judge Doris König asked, if you do not want to get involved in palliative relief, not eat without food, and do not want to brutally kill yourself. The answer was given by Judge Ullrich Maidowski: for someone who "wants to turn before" there is "no way out". Normally, the exercise of fundamental rights is the rule, and the interference with fundamental rights is the exception. "Here it is the other way around."
Constitutional judge Peter Huber openly suggested instead of the general prohibition to choose a "milder construction", and with this directly "to set the dangers, the autonomy protection" - much like the abortion, where you "with a consulting solution and no bad experience have made.
Sybille Kessal-Wulf, rapporteur for the case and responsible for the drafting of the judgment, did not allow the dissuasive examples to apply to other countries: Why does not the German legislator say: "We just do it better"? "Alternative regulatory concepts" could include, according to the Constitutional Court judge, that at least two or even three physicians have to assess a deceased person; that there is a waiting period to prevent hasty decisions; that a psychologist with additional qualification is mandatory; that only certain medications may be used; that there are additional control tools.
Instead, the current legal situation in the sentence formulated by a representative of the medical profession: "In the end it gets stuck with the doctor."
Against this background, Voßkuhle even acknowledged the raison d'être of assisted suicide groups: "It may not be a coincidence that dying clubs have formed" because they offer the necessary expertise. A dying helper could help "that things do not get out of hand" - especially if they themselves are professionally controlled.
"Abstract Life Protection" was not the goal
Only the CDU-nominated judge Christine Langefeld tried to build a bridge for the defenders of the ban: whether it was not about "the protection of life" as such?
The representative of the Bundestag, the university teacher Steffen Augsberg, either did not recognize the intention, or he was simply too honest: "Abstract Lebensschutz" was not the objective of the deputies, the Green MEPs that you wanted to have it, otherwise not supported.
Instead of his client Horst L., the Munich attorney Christoph Knauer took over his last word: He asked to cancel the prohibition paragraph completely, and not to set the legislator only a deadline for correction. Because with further waiting "our client, who runs away the time, would not help."