earticle

영어

Lately, heated discussions have developed in the medical and academic circles as to whether patients' self-decision to cease their own life-sustaining care could be justified in light of respect toward death with dignity. What served as a decisive momentum for such discussions was the ethical and medical view of care for the terminally ill, followed by vehement debates in full scale from the medico-legal standpoint. The criminal law has maintained its firm stand against withdrawal of meaningless life-sustaining care from the view of so-called "the principle of absolute protection of human life". There have on the one hand been angles arguing that such perspective of the criminal law does not coincide with the reality but does only add extra burden on the part of patients' families and even medical staff as well, worsening their legal stability and possible anticipation in their living. On the other hand, there have been positions claiming that it would be too early to introduce withdrawal of meaningless life-sustaining care like shock therapy in theoretic as well as real terms. Lots of debates have already been well under way about the death with dignity along with the issue of euthanasia in Korea but have not met any positive approaches toward its solution. In this midst, the Supreme Court of Korea provided recently a criterion for death with dignity on the occasion of its first decree allowing such death. This measure is widely accepted as a representative example of 'judicial activism' with which the court ventured to stop gap between incomplete legislation and real situation by means of positive interpretation of laws in consideration of social pressure to see the death with dignity allowed whereas the National Assembly and the Administration have been overtly conscious of the public opinion. However, under the circumstances in which there is no legal support to determine the death with dignity in legal terms, there may still exist limitation in solving legal disputes to follow in the future by making use of this decree as the only legal basis. Since the court is essentially expected to interpret and apply the laws, it must be beyond its capacity to decide the issue of death with dignity since it requires of the court the sense of judgement equivalent almost to legislation.