Ludwig Minelli, the founder of Dignitas, Switzerland’s best-known assisted-dying organisation, has died. He took his own life on November 29th, just days short of his 93rd birthday.
Once a correspondent for the magazine Der Spiegel from 1964 to 1974, Mr Minelli turned to law in 1977, enrolling at the University of Zurich. He earned his law degree in 1981 and, by the mid-1980s, had qualified as a human-rights lawyer.
His growing interest in fundamental rights led him in 1978 to found the Swiss Society for the European Convention on Human Rights, an association dedicated to promoting and protecting the values enshrined in the treaty.
In 1998, Mr Minelli established Dignitas and spent more than two decades at the centre of Europe’s most contentious debate over the right to die. His aim, he argued, was simple: to defend personal autonomy at the end of life. His methods, and the organisation he created, repeatedly drew criticism from politicians, doctors and religious groups. They also brought him frequently before the courts.
Dignitas said on Sunday that its team would continue its founder’s work and seek to strengthen the organisation’s international role as a defender of self-determination “throughout life and at its end”. Until his death Mr Minelli remained closely involved in legal actions, sometimes as a complainant or a defendant, more often as a strategist working behind the scenes. He accepted prosecution as the price of challenging existing boundaries, confident, he said, that the law would ultimately evolve.
Through persistent litigation before Switzerland’s federal court and the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, Mr Minelli helped shape the legal framework governing assisted suicide. A landmark ruling in 2011 affirmed that a mentally competent individual has the right to decide how and when to end his or her life. He also campaigned for foreigners to enjoy the same access to information and legal protection as Swiss citizens—an ambition that made Dignitas a destination for so-called “suicide tourism”.
According to the organisation, Dignitas has more than 10,000 members. Only a small share of those who seek its advice ever request medically assisted suicide; fewer still go through with it. Mr Minelli’s death thus closes one of the most controversial chapters in Europe’s long argument over the limits of personal freedom.
More on this:
Digintas press release (in English)
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