Brussels, 07/01/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 7 January, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) held a Grand Chamber hearing in the case of Lambert and Others v. France (application 46043/14 - see EUROPE 11110). The case concerns execution of the judgment delivered on 24 June 2014 by the Conseil d'État (the French Supreme Administrative Court) authorising the withdrawal of the artificial nutrition and hydration of Vincent Lambert.
The ECHR has begun examination of the outcome for Lambert, who is a tetraplegic in state of complete dependence, and currently hospitalised in the palliative care unit of Reims University Hospital. In June, the Conseil d'État authorised the withdrawal of Lambert's artificial nutrition and hydration, which are keeping him alive. Upon appeal, the ECHR immediately asked the French government to suspend execution of the judgment delivered by the Conseil d'État authorising the nutrition and hydration of 38-year-old Lambert, who is in a minimally conscious state, to be stopped.
Rachel Lambert, the patient's wife, who is encouraged by Vincent Lambert's doctors and six of his eight brothers and sisters, wants to let her husband go. However, his parents are against this.
The 17 judges at the Strasbourg-based ECHR heard the main actors in this rebounding court case for two hours. However, they will not deliver their ruling until at least two months' time, a source close to the jurisdiction stated.
The applicants are Pierre Lambert and his wife Viviane Lambert, David Philippon and Anne Tuarze - who are the parents, a half-brother and a sister respectively of Vincent Lambert.
Vincent Lambert sustained serious head injuries in a road-traffic accident in 2008 and, as a result, he is tetraplegic and in a state of complete dependence. He now receives artificial nutrition and hydration administered through a gastric tube.
Vincent Lambert's carers observed increasing signs in 2012 of what they believed to be resistance on his part to day-to-day care, and therefore the medical team initiated in early 2013 the collective procedure provided for by the so-called Leonetti Act of 22 April 2005 on patients' rights and end-of-life issues. Rachel Lambert, the patient's wife, was also involved in the procedure. The procedure resulted in a decision by Dr Kariger, the doctor in charge of Vincent Lambert, to withdraw the patient's nutrition and reduce his hydration.
On 9 May 2013, the applicants applied to the urgent-applications judge of the Châlons-en-Champagne Administrative Court, seeking an injunction ordering the hospital to resume feeding and hydrating Vincent Lambert normally. On 11 January 2014, Kariger announced his intention to discontinue artificial nutrition and hydration. On 13 January 2014, the applicants again applied to the urgent-applications judge of the Châlons-en-Champagne Administrative Court, in order to prohibit stopping the feeding and hydrating Vincent Lambert. On 16 January 2014, the court suspended implementation of Kariger's decision. In three applications, Vincent Lambert's wife, his nephew and Reims University Hospital appealed against this judgment to the urgent-applications judge of the Conseil d'État. On 24 June 2014, the Conseil d'État delivered a judgment in which it held that Kariger's decision of 11 January 2014 had been lawful, and rejected the applicants' requests.
François Alabrune, the director of legal affairs at the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who is representing the French State, told the Court that the latest medical expertise has established a worsening of Vincent Lambert's state of consciousness. The Conseil d'État was also based on the will expressed by Vincent Lambert before his accident of not wanting to be kept alive artificially in a state of great dependence, according to his wife. Rachel Lambert, 33, did not want to elaborate further to the media on Wednesday. However, her lawyer Laurent Pettiti read the Court some extracts from her book. “Letting Vincent go is my last proof of love”, she wrote. “He especially did not want to be a vegetable. He spoke about it quite spontaneously”, François Lambert, Vincent's nephew told journalists.
Jean Paillot, the applicants' lawyer, told the Court that Vincent Lambert is not receiving any medical treatment or attached to any machine. “His health situation is stable. It could even improve”, he stated. In Paillot's view, stopping food and hydration to Vincent Lambert would be a breach of the right to live (Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights) and would be inhumane or degrading treatment (Article 3). “Beyond Vincent Lambert's situation is the situation of around 1,700 people in France, who are in the same state of health (…), which comes into play today”, said Paillot. “We contest that Vincent is in a situation of unreasonable obstinacy from the sole fact of giving or withdrawing this feeding tube”, Paillot stated. French law bans euthanasia, encourages palliative care and “obliges a life plan to be developed for every person in a care establishment”, he said. “Mr Lambert is not benefitting from any of these points. What we want to practise is euthanasia”, Paillot said.
If Vincent Lambert's parents do not succeed before the ECHR, they would reportedly envisage other routes of appeal in France, their lawyers told French news agency AFP.
Euthanasia is only officially legal in three countries in Europe (the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg) but other countries authorise or tolerate a form of assisted death - especially Switzerland, which legalises assisted suicide. (LC)