• The Angers Criminal Court has acquitted a man who was tried for "false writing" after having issued two false prescriptions for veterinary euthanasia products, for the benefit of a seriously ill friend.

  • His lawyer had pleaded "state of necessity" and obtained the release of his client.

  • In France, only "deep and continuous sedation until death" is authorized for people with incurable diseases, in great suffering and whose vital prognosis is engaged "in the short term".

It is a rare decision on a subject as sensitive as it is complex.

Monday, May 2, the Angers criminal court decided to release a veterinarian, prosecuted for having written two false prescriptions for one of his sick friends.

Suffering from Charcot's disease, a serious and painful neurodegenerative pathology, he had asked him to help him die.

After a first refusal and three suicide attempts by his friend, the defendant had finally agreed to prescribe anesthetic products for him.

In their decision handed down at the start of the week, the magistrates considered that "there was a state of necessity, that it was not a question of safeguarding the person but of preventing them from suffering", reports

Le Courrier de l 'West

.

This legal notion of “state of necessity” had never been used for cases relating to assisted suicide.

So, how to explain this judgment and what can it change in the debate on the end of life in France? 

What was wrong with this man?

The veterinarian, who appeared on Monday, was tried for "false" and "use of false".

“My client did not actively participate in his friend's suicide.

He provided him with the means to commit suicide and wrote the disputed order, ”explains his lawyer, Me Antoine Barret.

In France, assisted suicide is not clearly prohibited by law.

On the other hand, the fact of diverting a product from its initial use to kill a third party can be repressed.

"Whatever the case, if you want to help someone get ahead of a painful death to allow them a sweeter end, you are forced to break the law", analyzes the lawyer.

Since the establishment in 2005 of a right to "let die" by the Leonetti law which promotes the establishment of palliative care, the texts have evolved slightly.

Since 2016, deep and continuous sedation "until death" is permitted for incurable patients whose vital prognosis is engaged "in the short term".

What does "state of necessity" mean in the law?

Article L122-7 of the Penal Code specifies that a person may not be held criminally responsible for an offense or a crime when it is committed to save someone from danger or to save his person. .

"It's a bit like the notion of self-defense, it's a cause for exoneration from criminal liability", adds Antoine Barret who pleaded in this case.

Here, it was therefore necessary to demonstrate that a danger did indeed exist for the veterinarian's friend.

“His condition was going to deteriorate in an ineluctable way until causing his death in appalling suffering”, continues the lawyer.

Then comes the notion of “safeguarding a person”.

Here, the veterinarian's council called on the judges to consider that this notion could also cover the safeguarding of his dignity, his will and his conscience.

At the hearing as during the proceedings, the victim's family also supported the defendant, recalling that their loved one had already attempted suicide and had repeatedly expressed his desire to end his life with dignity. .

What can this decision change?

By relaxing this man and invoking "the state of necessity", the Angevin judges have "created a legal box for assisted suicide with the tools that are theirs", greets the lawyer François Lambert, nephew of Vincent Lambert who militates for more than ten years for a right to die with dignity.

In his eyes, “this makes it possible to create a more assertive legal framework” likely to inspire other courts faced with similar cases.

The council of the relaxed veterinarian welcomes for its part a “courageous” decision: “It is always easier to condemn, especially when the offense is constituted as was the case here.

What was more difficult was to recognize the unsurpassable human problem in which my client found himself”.

However, the prosecution now has seven days to appeal this judgment.

Finally, for François Lambert, this type of decision could allow parliamentarians to take up the subject and propose legislative changes on assisted suicide.

In April 2021, a bill creating a right to euthanasia was examined.

It never came to fruition due to too many amendments tabled.

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  • End of life

  • Suicide

  • Euthanasia

  • Sickness

  • Leonetti Law

  • Bioethics

  • Justice