Pierre Fleury-Le Gros is a lecturer in private law at the Faculty of International Affairs in Le Havre and a member of the LexFEIM research laboratory.
Is assisted suicide legal in France?
On March 17, in a forum at
Le Monde
, the philosopher François Galichet answered bluntly in the affirmative.
According to the author, assisted suicide is legal.
But does the statement hold true?
The end of life is a particularly sensitive subject;
Particular care must therefore be taken when it comes to making a public distinction between what is authorized and what is not.
In this process, it is with precision that we must understand the terms of the law, as well as the court decisions which apply them.
So as not to suggest that what is not legal could be.
So as not to give rise to hopes which it is not up to us to judge whether they are legitimate or not.
Being deprived of the possibility of choosing the end of life that you want can be a source of suffering.
But reading that we can escape criminal prosecution in the event of assisted suicide can have serious consequences, when legal reality dictates the opposite, because contrary to what has been said, assisted suicide is not legal. in France.
The analysis of the law and the decisions of the judges will confirm this in these lines.
In order to avoid any confusion, the distinction between complicity and assistance must be made.
In the first place, and in order to avoid any confusion, the distinction between complicity and assistance must be made.
It is affirmed that "
suicide not being a crime, assistance to an act which is not a crime cannot be one
".
But the assertion is not correct.
It leads to the expression of an untruth.
At the origin of this one, an amalgamation between two concepts: complicity and assistance.
Explanations.
In French law, there is a basic principle: for the accomplice of an act to be condemned, the act in which he participated must itself be illegal.
It is thus said that the accomplice "
borrows
" the criminality of the act performed by the one who committed it, because he has no criminality of his own.
For example, if aiding and abetting murder is punishable under French law, it is because the murder is itself an illegal act.
To read also:
A collective of doctors: "Let's tackle the subject of the end of life without posture or ideology"
In light of this principle, complicity in suicide could only be punishable if the suicide was itself an illegal act.
However, it is not.
He is no longer.
Since 1791. It is therefore correct to state that the act of aiding and abetting suicide cannot be continued.
However, can we go further?
Can we say, as the author does, that it is not only the act of complicity that cannot be prosecuted, but also assisted suicide in a more general way?
The answer is no.
To assert this is an untruth induced by an amalgam between the notions of “
assistance
” and “
complicity
”.
It is not because the act of assisted suicide cannot be prosecuted in the field of complicity that it cannot be pursued at all.
The two are not synonymous, because the notion of assistance is protean.
Complicity is only one of its facets, but it includes at least one other which is illegal: provocation to suicide, a criminal offense which exposes those who risk it to a sentence of 3 years imprisonment and 45 000 euros fine.
In other words, it is not because the act of assisted suicide cannot be prosecuted in the field of complicity that it cannot be pursued at all.
We cannot therefore affirm that "
assisted suicide is not a crime
" and that it is "
legal in France
": someone who supplies drugs or a weapon to a person wishing to commit suicide and who encourages them to use them will pay the price.
He could be prosecuted for provocation to suicide.
He could therefore be criminally convicted.
Read also:
End of life: when citizens' conventions replace democracy
Second, in support of his position, François Galichet does not rely only on the law.
He also invokes a "
well-established case law
" of judges who would endorse assisted suicide.
But the Jean Mercier affair on which the author relies does not corroborate this reading.
On November 10, 2011, Jean Mercier had helped his wife to end her life by providing her with medication;
he himself had taken them out of their packaging to place them in his wife's hand, so that she could ingest them.
He was prosecuted for non-assistance to anyone in danger.
On November 10, 2016, the Lyon Court of Appeal decided not to convict him, a decision then confirmed by the Court of Cassation on December 13, 2017. But in these two decisions which allowed Jean Mercier to escape conviction, can we see the proof that assisted suicide is legal?
Never.
Far from endorsing assisted suicide, the judges considered that they were in fact acts that would have justified prosecution on a much more serious basis: murder.
Contrary to what is argued, they in no way endorse assisted suicide.
In reality, the judges did not have the choice to rule otherwise, for two intrinsically linked reasons:
First, the prosecution was carried out on a bad basis - failure to assist a person in danger.
However, the active role played by Jean Mercier did not authorize a conviction on this basis which implies on the contrary that a passive role be played.
It is for this reason that the Lyon Court of Appeal decided not to convict him.
She considers that he played an active role characteristic of the murder, but not a passive role characteristic of non-assistance to a person in danger.
Secondly, French law did not authorize the Court of Appeal to open new proceedings on the adequate basis of the murder, because this possibility had been definitively ruled out by the examining magistrate: obstacle linked to the procedure.
The Court of Cassation confirmed this, while also noting that prosecution for murder would have been justified ... Thus, far from endorsing assisted suicide, the judges considered that it was in reality a question of acts which would have justified prosecution on a much more serious ground: murder.
It thus appears that neither the law nor the position of the judges allow the conclusion that assisted suicide is legal in France.
Even if there is a strong conviction that assisted suicide should be legalized, this should not take precedence over legal reality.