X-Message-Number: 6628 Date: Sat, 27 Jul 1996 13:01:47 -0700 From: David Brandt-Erichsen <> Subject: Australia law The following news story on the Northern Territory court ruling was carried by Reuters (July 24). It contains a few more details than the Associated Press report posted earlier. ---------- CANBERRA, Australia. An Australian provincial court Wednesday upheld the world's first voluntary euthanasia laws, but the emotional battle over assisted suicide is now set to go to the country's highest court. Pro-euthanasia doctor Philip Nitschke, dubbed "Dr. Death" by critics, told Reuters he hoped the decision would clear the way for terminally ill patients to end their life. "We have got to have a better chance today than we did yesterday," he said by telephone from Darwin, capital of the Northern Territory. The territory's Supreme Court ruled by two to one that the law was within the territory parliament's power, rejecting a challenge by a coalition of doctors, church and Aboriginal leaders. The coalition's spokesman, Dr. Chris Wake, told Reuters the group would now take its challenge to Australia's High Court and was confident of victory. "We have only run a quarter of our argument and we believe we can win in the High Court," he said by telephone. Nitschke, who has several patients waiting to die, said he would immediately renew his search for the two extra doctors needed to approve an assisted suicide application. "Whether it translates into signatures is the question." The law, allowing terminally ill people to die by lethal injection or pills, came into force July 1. But it has not yet been used, with specialist doctors unwilling to approve applications in the face of the legal challenge and separate legislative threats in the territory and national parliaments. Doctors have been warned they could face murder charges if they help a patient die and the law is later overturned. "There must be some specialists out there who feel awfully bloody guilty," Nitschke said. "We'll be asking them immediately where do they stand now?" One of Nitschke's patients, cancer-stricken 66-year-old taxi driver Max Bell, drove a battered taxi thousands of miles across harsh desert earlier this month in a bid to be the first to use the law. But he returned home two weeks ago after failing to find two specialists to support his bid. "He's a real casualty of those who waited to the last minute (to challenge the law)," Nitschke said. Wake said Wednesday's dissenting judgement in support of the challenge was encouraging for the High Court bid, due to begin within weeks. The coalition argues that the law breaches what it says is an underlying right to life in the national constitution. The law has been condemned by Australia's religious, community and political leaders, including Prime Minister John Howard, but is overwhelmingly popular in opinion polls. Howard, elected in March partly on a platform of conservative family values, has backed plans by a government politician to introduce his own bill in parliament for Canberra to override the territory's legislation. Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=6628