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A hospital room.
Dignity SA has launched a legal challenge in the North Gauteng High Court, seeking to decriminalise medical assistance in dying.
The organisation, along with other parties, is asking the Constitutional Court to declare current laws prohibiting assisted dying unconstitutional and invalid.
The group announced at a media briefing in Cape Town.
Co-founder Professor Willem Landman says the move aims to give terminally ill patients a dignified option.
“So we ask the court to direct parliament to write a law legalising medical assistance in dying within 24 months. But because there would be a vacuum between the declaration of invalidity of this aspect of common law and parliament completing its writing of a medical assistance in dying law, we ask that this declaration of invalidity be suspended for the duration of 24 months, which parliament needs to write the law. So decriminalise, legalise and suspend the declaration for the duration of parliament writing the law,” said Landman.
The organisation says the current legal framework does not adequately address the needs of terminally ill patients.
DignitySA wants the court to declare the ban on assisted dying unconstitutional
