On 10 November 2010, Ms. Alda Gross, a Swiss national, brought an action against the Swiss Confederation before the European Court of Human Rights. In her application she alleged that the Swiss Government had violated her right to decide when and how to end her life (derived from Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights) by rejecting her request to be provided with a lethal dose of sodium pentobarbital.
In the judgment delivered on 9 April 2013 the Second Section of the European Court held (by four votes to three) that Article 8 of the Convention had been violated. It is true that after that the Swiss Government requested the referral of the case to the Grand Chamber; and it is certainly true that the Grand Chamber considered that there had been an abuse of the right of petition and, accordingly, held (by nine votes to eight) that the application was inadmissible. Nevertheless what matters is that the Second Section had to face up to the fact that there was (again) one person claiming the right to die. My aim in this article is to comment on some critical aspects of this subject.
Keywords:
Assisted suicide, Right to die, Positive obligations
Álvarez Gálvez, Íñigo. (2015). A commentary on the case of Gross v. Switzerland (European Court of Human Rights, case Nº 67810/10). Revista Tribuna Internacional, 4(8), pp. 227–238. https://doi.org/10.5354/rti.v4i8.38552
