Results: Laws on assisted dying in The Netherlands and Belgium are restricted to doctors. In principle, assisted suicide (but not euthanasia) is not illegal in either Germany or Switzerland, but a doctor’s participation in Germany would violate the code of professional medical conduct and might contravene of a doctor’s legal duty to save life. The Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill Bill proposed in the UK in 2005 focused on doctors, whereas the Proposal on Assisted Dying of the Norwegian Penal Code Commission minority in 2002 did not. Conclusion: A society moving towards an open approach to assisted dying should carefully identify tasks to assign exclusively to medical doctors, and distinguish those possibly better performed by other professions.
European Court judges in Strasbourg have ruled against Germany in an assisted suicide case, saying a widower's rights were infringed. Ulrich Koch challenged the German ban on actively helping someone commit suicide. His paralysed wife died after taking poison in Switzerland in 2005. The judges did not rule on the ban, but said the German courts should have examined Mr Koch's complaint. On assisted suicide, the judges said it was up to individual nations to decide. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ordered Germany to pay Mr Koch 2,500 euros (£1,600; $2,460) in damages and 26,736 euros for legal costs. There was a violation of Article Eight of the European Convention on Human Rights (right to respect for private and family life) because of the German courts' refusal to examine the merits of Mr Koch's complaint, the ruling said.