SW News: A European Court of Human Rights is set to issue a verdict on whether Belgium wrongly permitted a woman to be euthanized by lethal injection on the grounds of “untreatable depression.”

Tom Mortier, whose mother was killed by lethal injection at her request due to depression in a Brussels hospital in April 2012, fought the case in the European Court of Human Rights. As part of the legal proceedings, the Brussels government was forced to submit a four-page form that documents Godelieva de Troyer’s case.

Troyer, 64, had approached the country’s leading euthanasia advocate Dr Wim Distelmans, who agreed to provide assisted suicide despite being a cancer specialist. Neither her son nor any family member was consulted, according to a statement by the Christian legal group Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF International).

Euthanasia is legal in Belgium but regulated by a 2002 law that mandates certain steps to be taken so that doctors can take the lives of people legally. There were glaring irregularities in this process like Article 5 of the Euthanasia Act, which specifies that the Euthanasia registration form” 607/12 must be completed and submitted within four working days after the patient’s demise.

Form 607/12 was submitted about two months late. The law specifies that the attending physician must “be certain of the patient’s constant physical or mental suffering and the durable nature of his/her request. To this end, the physician has several conversations with the patient spread out over a reasonable period”. In this case, the interval between the request and the death was only 58 days – far too little for a woman suffering from complex and long-standing depression. The only treatment that the doctor gave her was lethal injection, said the plaintiff.

Over 27,000 people have died from euthanasia in the country since it was legalized two decades ago. Belgium’s law even allows minors who are terminally ill to request euthanasia. However, parental consent and the agreement of doctors and psychiatrists are a must.