Dutch Prosecutor who enabled euthanasia laws is dead

Description: [of the article from the World right-to-die news list]

Dr A.O.A. Smook wrote from the Netherlands:

I just attended the cremation of Adelbert Josephus Jitta, (24-09-1938 30-06-2008) well known by many of you. He was one of the most important protagonists of the Dutch law on euthanasia as a member of D66, a liberal/democratic party.

When he was a prosecutor in Alkmaar, we met each other during a meeting about reporting euthanasia cases in our hospital. Fortunately the board of the hospital was not against euthanasia, because they said that it was a medical decision with legal aspects. This was in the early eighties.

It took us some time and sometimes a keen struggle to get a standard formal procedure, after some prosecutions in one of which he had to prosecute me! When he informed about that, he said that he had asked one of his colleagues to handle the case and that he already had asked Eugene Sutorius to defend me. After two years of uncertainty and the expense of 40.000 guilders, first paid by the NVVE, later by my insurance company, I was cleared.

And so by trial and error, we succeeded in the end to lay the foundation for our law in the Netherlands in 2002.


Dr. Smook continues with the story of a police raid on his hospital, and the difficulties of implementing a new euthanasia protocol.

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Source:

Smook, A.O.A.. "Prosecutor who behind the scenes enabled euthanasia laws is dead". World right-to-die news list. Tue Jul 6 15:13:32 PDT 2010. <lists.opn.org/pipermail/right-to-die_lists.opn.org/2010-July/003958.html>. Information: http://lists.opn.org/mailman/listinfo/right-to-die_lists.opn.org

Tags:

Tags (or keywords) briefly indicate some major topics of the report.

  • euthanasia

  • history

  • Netherlands

ID:

The EuthaNEWSia ID for this advisory is: enid201007073619.
Mailed: Wednesday, July 7, 2010 14:29:42 -0600
at Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

Etcetera:

EuthaNEWSia is a free Canadian news advisory service covering end-of-life issues such as right to die, assisted suicide, and euthanasia. EuthaNEWSia is produced by the Right to Die Society of Canada which works toward a good death for all, including open, regulated and equitable access to euthanasia and assisted suicide. The editor is Michael Dawson <editor@euthanewsia.ca>.

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