Year: 2023
Author: Wörner, Liane, Windsberger, Alexandra
Zeitschrift für Lebensrecht, Vol. 32 (2023), Iss. 1 : pp. 43–55
Abstract
In the highly regarded so-called Insulin-Decision, the German Federal Court of Justice acquitted the defendant from homicide on demand, who injected her husband with six lethal doses of insulin at his request. The Regional Court, at first instance, had sentenced the defendant to one year’s imprisonment under Section 216 of the German Criminal Code for homicide on demand, because she had “actively” assisted her husband’s death by injecting him with insulin. The Federal Court based the acquittal of the defendant on a novel description of the doctrine of perpetration, according to which the normative question of who “controls” a suicide event depends on the “overall plan”. The decision fits into a series of rulings that began with the so called Putz-Decision in 2010 and, in the overall view, increasingly herald a paradigm shift for the criminal law assessment of “assisted dying,” not least because the German Federal Constitutional Court recently, in February 2020, even made explicit a fundamental right to self-determined dying. The Insulin-Decision proves that the crime of homicide on demand in § 216 of the German Criminal Code needs to be redefined in the context of the fundamental right to self-determined dying, since this necessarily involves the right to have recourse to the help of third parties in order to realize it.
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Journal Article Details
Publisher Name: Global Science Press
Language: German
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3790/zfl.32.1.43
Zeitschrift für Lebensrecht, Vol. 32 (2023), Iss. 1 : pp. 43–55
Published online: 2023-01
AMS Subject Headings: Duncker & Humblot
Copyright: COPYRIGHT: © Global Science Press
Pages: 13
Keywords: Aktive Sterbehilfe Suizidbeihilfe Förderung der Selbsttötung Insulin-Beschluss Grundrecht auf Selbstbestimmtes Sterben Garantenstellung Tötung auf Verlangen Tatherrschaft beim Suizid Paradigmenwechsel Neuzuschnitt Sterbehilfe
Author Details
| Section Title | Page | Action | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Liane Wörnerund Alexandra Windsberger: Straflose Suizidassistenz trotz aktiver Tötungshandlung? Über Widersprüche zwischen § 216 StGB und dem Grundrecht auf selbstbestimmtes Sterben | 43 | ||
| Über Widersprüche zwischen § 216 StGB und dem Grundrecht auf selbstbestimmtes Sterben | 43 | ||
| I. Einführung | 43 | ||
| II. Gegenstand und Struktur der Entscheidung | 44 | ||
| III. Tötung auf Verlangen oder straflose Suizidbegleitung? | 45 | ||
| IV. Zur Verfassungsmäßigkeit des § 216 StGB | 49 | ||
| V. Wiederaufleben einer Garantenpflicht für das Leben? | 52 | ||
| VI. Fazit | 54 | ||
| Abstract | 54 | ||
| Schlagworte | 55 |