Quebec’s top court upheld on Tuesday the right of terminally ill patients in the province to seek medically assisted death.
The ruling by a three-judge Court of Appeal panel came after a lower court judge ruled on Dec. 1 that the province’s medically assisted dying law contradicts the federal Criminal Code.
Justice Michel Pinsonnault had temporarily suspended the legislation saying that federal laws take precedence over provincial laws even though last February Canada’s highest court struck down the portion of the Criminal Code prohibiting medically assisted suicide and gave the federal government a year to draft new legislation.
The provincial government decided to appeal Pinsonnault’s ruling in Quebec’s highest court.
In his appeal ruling released Tuesday morning Quebec’s Chief Justice Nicole Duval Hesler said Pinsonnault erred in his judgement because the doctrine of paramountcy of federal laws cannot be invoked to give precedence to invalid federal legislation, which was already struck down by the Supreme Court of Canada.
Provincial Health Minister Gaetan Barrette said his government is very satisfied with the ruling.
“It tells clearly the way things are done in this province are respectful of the current legislation,” Barrette said in an interview with CBC News.
The province’s assisted dying law has been in effect since Dec. 10 while the Quebec Court of Appeal was waiting to hear arguments in the case.
The law has been loudly denounced by a group of doctors against assisted dying.
“Nobody should be euthanized,” Dr. Paul Saba, a family physician and president of the Coalition of Physicians for Social Justice, which led the legal fight against the law, told CBC News. “What they call medical aid in dying, well, is shortening somebody’s life. The way of treating somebody’s life is not by ending life, but palliative care.”
Barrette said he agrees that there should be more resources devoted to palliative care.
“We passed a bill, Bill 2 that states that palliative care is a right in this province, but at the same time this bill is about a continuum of medical services provided to citizens… that goes from palliative care to medical aide in dying,” Barrette said. “It’s about giving the right to the patient himself or herself to decide whether or not they want to end their lives in the way they choose.”
Under Bill 52, individual doctors can refuse to help a terminally ill patient to die, but a hospital cannot opt out of providing the service.
Quebec is the first Canadian province to pass such a law, arguing it is an extension of end-of-life care and thus a health issue, which falls under provincial jurisdiction.
The new federal Liberal government is seeking a six-month extension on the Supreme Court’s deadline which, if granted, would give it until August to come up with a new law.
The Supreme Court will hold an oral hearing on Jan. 11 as it considers whether to allow Ottawa’s request for the extension.
With files from CBC News and The Canadian Press
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