Bogotá, Colombia, May 13, 2022 / 15:59 pm
The Colombian Bishops’ Conference said it was deeply pained by the Constitutional Court’s Wednesday ruling decriminalizing assisted suicide, and urged the authorities to make decisions aimed at protecting life "and not its destruction."
By a 6-3 vote, the Colombian Constitutional Court decriminalized assisted suicide May 11. Judges Alejandro Linares, Gloria Ortiz, Diana Fajardo, Natalia Ángel Cabo, and Antonio José Lizarazo voted in favor, and Jorge Enrique Ibáñez, Cristina Pardo, and Paola Meneses voted against. Lizarazo was in charge of presenting the case to the court.
With its ruling, the court accepted the lawsuit that Lucas Correa Montoya and Camila Jaramillo Salazar of the Laboratory of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights filed in challenge to Section 2 of Article 107 of the Penal Code. The case was admitted for consideration by the court Sept. 1, 2021.
The section that the court declared unconstitutional penalized a violation with 16 to 36 months in prison "when the inducement or aid [to commit suicide] is aimed at putting an end to intense suffering resulting from bodily injury or serious and incurable disease."