The Federal Constitutional Court has rejected a constitutional complaint filed by a specialist physician in neurology and psychiatry concerning his conviction for manslaughter related to assisted suicide.
The court, in a decision released on Wednesday, stated that the grounds for the complaint did not conclusively demonstrate a potential violation of fundamental rights or rights analogous to fundamental rights. Specifically, the physician failed to convincingly argue that the challenged rulings were based on a misinterpretation of the constitutional principles applicable to assessing the autonomy of a suicide decision.
The physician had previously been sentenced to a three-year prison term after specialist courts determined he had provided assistance in suicide while the deceased’s decision was demonstrably influenced by a psychological condition. Subsequently, he argued that his conviction violated the prohibition of arbitrariness and the principle of legal certainty. His defense rested on the assertion that the deceased’s suicide decision was freely and responsibly made, based on his own definition of free will. The court’s decision date was July 1, 2025, under the case number 2 BvR 860/25.