Criminal Liability of Third Parties with Regard to Free-Responsible Suicide: New Developments in the German Jurisdiction

• Author: Henning Lorenz
• Pages: 79-85

79

JURIDICA INTERNATIONAL 28/2019

Henning Lorenz

Research assistant

Doctoral student

Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg

Criminal Liability of Third

Parties with Regard to

Free-Responsible Suicide:

New Developments in the German Jurisdiction*1

1. Introduction

‘There is no doubt that the sentence administered justice in the concrete case, but at the same time it opened

the way for many future wrong decisions in this area.’*2 These were the words with which former law pro-

fessor Rudolf Schmitt reviewed the judgement of the Federal Court of Justice as to the criminal liability of

third parties in the context of free-responsible suicide in the Wittig case. His pessimistic prediction did not

remain valid for long. Quite to the contrary, it seemed that the judgement remained without supporters

until 2016. In that year, the regional courts of appeal of Hamburg and Berlin decided to open a trial based

on it.*3 The district court of Hamburg and of Berlin delivered judgements in the fi rst instance in late 2017

and early 2018, respectively. This paper is about these new developments within German jurisdiction. After

a brief overview of the basics of suicide and German criminal law (in Section 2., the Wittig case (in Sec-

tion 3.) and the two recent cases (in sections 4. and 5.) are presented. The paper ends with a conclusion and

thoughts on the future (6.).

2. Basics of suicide and German criminal law

‘Whoever kills a human being without being a murderer, shall be punished for manslaughter with impris-

onment for not less than fi ve years’ states Section 212 of the German Criminal Code*4. At fi rst glance, this

is irritating. Someone who commits suicide kills a human being – namely, himself. If we strictly refer to

 This paper is an extended version of a lecture given on .. at the University of Tartu in the context of the doctoral

seminar titled ‘Common Problems of Medical Law and Criminal Law’. Special thanks go to Prof. Sootak and Ants Nõmper

for their kind invitation to the seminar and to Estonia.

 R. Schmitt, Der Arzt und sein lebensmüder Patient [‘The Doctor and His Tired-of-Life Patient’]. – Juristenzeitung /,

pp. –, on p. .

 Hanseatisches Oberlandesgericht (Hanseatic Regional Appeal Court), decision from .. –  Ws / = Zeitschrift

für Medizinstrafrecht /, pp. –; Kammergericht Berlin (Court of Appeal for Berlin), decision from .. – 

Ws / –  AR / = Zeitschrift für Medizinstrafrecht /, pp. –.

 The sections referred to below are from the German Criminal Code when no other law is mentioned.

https://doi.org/10.12697/JI.2019.28.09