The Vincent Lambert affair has already been going on for 11 years. Eleven years of legal proceedings and debates about the end of life and euthanasia, around the central question of the “right to die with dignity”.
Back to the facts: in September 2008, Vincent Lambert (32) was the victim of a car accident. Plunged into an artificial coma, he is quadriplegic and, after a brief hospitalization in Belgium (where specialists declare that he is in a “minimal state of consciousness” which leaves no hope of any improvement), he is admitted to palliative care in Reims.
Five years later, in 2013, a protocol for stopping treatment was initiated by Vincent Lambert’s wife, Rachel. A first legal battle then begins: Vincent Lambert’s parents oppose what they consider to be an “assassination”.
Despite two legal expertises (in 2014 and in 2018) which concluded in an “irreversible state of health” the situation remains blocked and two camps are opposed: the supporters of the maintenance of Vincent Lambert (his parents, a brother and a sister ) and those in favor of stopping care (his wife, six of his siblings and a nephew).
End of treatment: the UN requests a new deadline from France
New developments in the Vincent Lambert case: on April 24, 2019, the Council of State (EC) validated the cessation of treatment, a decision supported on April 30, 2019 by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), seized by the parents of the young man.
Corn this Friday, May 3, 2019, the UN International Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (abbreviated CIDPH and seized by the parents of Vincent Lambert at the same time as the ECHR) asked the French State not to carry out the decision to stop d nutrition and hydration by Vincent Lambert, the time that an additional investigation is carried out.
“It is now the only international body specializing in the protection of the rights of people with disabilities which will rule on the conformity of the decisions of Doctor Vincent Sanchez of the CHU de Reims, the Administrative Court of Châlons-en-Champagne and the Council of State with the international commitments signed by France for the protection of disabled people, explain the parents’ lawyers. This is obviously a great relief for the parents, brother and sister of Vincent Lambert who await with confidence the examination of their request . “
Read also :
End of life: investigation against a retirement home
Unusual: an algorithm to know the date of death of patients
End of life: a campaign to inform the French about their rights
