"Try in the courts what they didn't achieve in Congress": the struggle against Noelia's euthanasia

BarcelonaAfter 20 months of waiting, Noelia will receive euthanasia this Thursday afternoon. Her father and the ultra-Catholic group Abogados Cristianos have tried until the last moment to prevent it with a lawsuit that has brought an ideological battle against the right to a dignified death to the courts. Even when they have no option left in the judicial arena, their pressure will continue with a demonstration at the gates of the health center where the girl is admitted, coinciding with the time when dignified death is scheduled to be administered.

The case has escalated to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and all the courts that had to rule during the process –five instances– have confirmed that Noelia had full faculties to decide on her life and that she met the requirements to receive euthanasia, which also had the medical endorsement of the Guarantee and Evaluation Commission, the group of experts responsible for assessing assisted dying requests. "It is a very guaranteed process," insists the president of the Association for the Right to Die with Dignity of Catalonia (DMD), Cristina Vallès. And she adds: "If Abogados Cristianos had not interfered, there would be no case. Noelia would have been able to die in peace and tranquility as she wished two years ago."

The president of DMD criticizes the ideological intentions of the appeals filed against Noelia's decision and the expert criterion: "What the PP did not achieve in Congress with the law, they are now trying in the courts through Abogados Cristianos". However, she dismisses that these lawsuits put the right to euthanasia at risk and recalls that the law has the approval of Congress and the endorsement of the Constitutional Court. "All this media circus only benefits Abogados Cristianos and harms Noelia," concludes Vallès.

The legal loophole that the ultra-Catholics used to push the procedure was the doubt about who can judicially intervene in someone else's euthanasia request. The law already provided that if the Guarantee and Evaluation Commission declined the patient's request, they could appeal. On the other hand, it was not foreseen that anyone could appeal a positive response from the Commission, and this is what Noelia's father did with the help of Abogados Cristianos. This has opened the legal debate on whether the relatives of an adult patient with full faculties can intervene judicially to stop an euthanasia procedure that already has medical approval.

For now, the High Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC) has ruled stating that a patient's relatives can be legitimized to bring an euthanasia procedure to court even if the applicant already has the approval of the expert committee. "It is the first case and it may leave a judicial mark, but we believe it will not, and the Generalitat's legal services are also trying to prevent it," says Vallès. All courts superior to the TSJC that have ruled on the case – the Supreme Court, the Constitutional Court, and the ECtHR – have not yet taken a position on this fundamental debate, and could do so after Noelia's death. The case of Francesc, 54 years old, is also still in the hands of the justice system following an appeal by his father, who, unlike Noelia's, is acting individually and not with the help of Abogados Cristianos.