Cyprus needs to address whether the ‘right to death’ should be as institutionally protected as the ‘right to life’ that states are bound to uphold, House Speaker Annita Demetriou has said.
Demetriou was speaking at a conference on Friday afternoon on the recognition and safeguarding of the right to euthanasia, which was organised by the Human Rights Committee of the Cyprus Bar Association (CBA) and the Parliamentary Committee on Human Rights and Equal Gender Opportunities.
In her greeting, Demetriou pointed out the many unresolved ethical issues, as well as the difficult legal questions every modern society has to answer in relation to the matter of the termination of life in end-state patients who wish to have a dignified death.
“It is time for Cyprus, like any modern society that listens its citizens and becomes sensitive to issues of human rights, to address the much-disputed matter of ‘right to death’ and through public debate reach a conclusion,” Demetriou said, adding that there needed to be an examination of whether the ‘right to death’ is indeed worthy of protection or whether its recognition in fact contradicts the ‘right to life’, which every state is institutionally bound to protect.”
Demetriou expressed satisfaction that all parties involved in this multifaceted issue were represented at the conference, from the legal and the wider medical world, to the church and representatives of organized patients, stating that it was “imperative that everyone’s position be recorded, so that it can be definitively judged whether Cypriot society is ready to proceed to the next step and whether there is indeed an urgent social need for regulation in accordance with established case law of the European Human Rights Court.
The chairwoman of the Parliamentary Committee on Human Rights, Irini Charalambidou, stated discussion has been started in January aiming for comprehensive consultation and submission of opinions by organised groups during a second meeting, to take place after Easter including a review of a report of the National Bioethics Committee.
Charalambidou said that that in countries where medically assisted suicide is incorporated into national law, it is governed by a very strict legal framework, with provisions aimed at safeguarding the procedure from abuse. “Personally, I believe that as a state we must recognise the right to this choice, the initiative to open the euthanasia chapter has been accepted with a positive reaction from society, it is a tragic event but nonetheless one we need to manage,” she said.
“I remind you that it is an institutionalised right of the patient to refuse treatment when informed of an incurable disease with a specific outcome. The doctor’s responsibility is limited to adequately informing the patient about existing treatments,” she added.
Charalambidou expressed the view that the decision belongs to the one who suffers, the only thing that the state is called upon to do is to give a patient the choice through the right institutional framework.
“Why not give the patient the right to choose how to leave if the outcome is confirmed, within a strict legal framework, with all the safeguards that have been adopted and applied in other European countries?” she asked participants.
The President of the Cyprus Bar Association, Christos Clerides, stated that the aim of the conference is to start the discussion both in wider society and within the association, since its members have not taken any decision on the issue so far.
Noting that in some countries, such as Italy, the referendum on euthanasia was banned, Clerides said he was looking forward to the findings of research in Cyprus, but that he was opposed to referendums as “popularise serious scientific issues which ought to be decided on under the guidance of experts.”
He expressed the readiness of the Association to provide legal assistance in drafting the law, expressing his opinion that, “if it seems that there is a social need, the state will not hesitate to move forward.”
The President of the Human Rights Committee of the CBA, Costas Paraskevas, referred to the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights on the issue of euthanasia, in which the court confirmed that an individual’s right to choose the means to place for the end to life provided the individual decided this freely, is an aspect of ‘right to privacy’.
“The public debate shows how difficult it is to reconcile the two fundamental principles of protection of human life with autonomy and self-determination of the individual,” said Parakevas. He added that according to the case law of Strasbourg, it is up to the member states through their legislation to decide whether euthanasia is allowed by law, pointing out that member states enjoy a wide margin of discretion when balancing the individual right to autonomy and dignity with the need to guarantee protection of the lives of vulnerable individuals, with the court retaining the power to review whether the state has performed its obligations.
“Despite inherent difficulties, the public debate in Cyprus on the issue of euthanasia is ongoing. The question is that if our country chooses to legislate the issue of euthanasia, then it should move within the prescribed margins and reach a clear and comprehensive legal framework for euthanasia in full compliance with the requirements of Articles 2 and 8 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights, ” Paraskevas concluded.
The Commissioner for Administration and Protection of Human Rights, Maria Stylianou-Lottides, stressed that the right to life and health were constitutionally guaranteed as the highest good, which requires absolute protection from the state, both by avoiding acts that can harm it, as well as with the obligation to act to protect it.
“In any case, a necessary condition for the application of any form of euthanasia should be the complete, valid and timely information of the patient so that his or her will is expressed without a doubt,” she said.
“The nascent right to death as an individual right has not yet gained legal status. The crime of euthanasia is judged according to the general rules of criminal law concerning crimes against the person,” she added, saying that the Cypriot legal system lacks regulations that mention the rights of patients with incurable diseases or those in the terminal stage of disease requesting euthanasia, and the corresponding duties of relevant medical and nursing staff.
“Given the multidimensional nature of the issue, the questions that arise are complex, and the answers and decisions are not at all easy,” she said. “The answer lies only in the one who is heading painfully towards death and it is certainly not always the same,” the Commissioner concluded.
