| Abstract [eng] |
Euthanasia – one of the most discussed issues in Lithuania and around the world. Specificity of this phenomenon - killing another person with altruistic purposes in order to liberate him from the unbearable suffering, raises ciminalization reasonabily questions of this issue. Euthanasia is criminalized in most countries of the world, and only absolute minority of counties have legalized it. In the Republic of Lithuania, euthanasia is also a criminal act. But there are many arising questions about legalizing it, becouse it is not a serious crime, according to the experts of the law. The purpose of this work is to investigate the legal regulation and reasonability of criminalization of phenomenon of euthanasia in the Republic of Lithuania and to determine the punishibility limits of this criminal act. According to this purpose, it is primarily aimed to provide objective and practical experienced opinion of specialists, possibly the closest to experiencing the phenomenon of euthanasia. Therefore, sociological research was done which was carried out by surveys to the lawyers ( judges, lawyers, prosecutors), physicians, and psychologists of the Republic of Lithuania, also an interviews were taken from the experts of the profession aforesaid. It was aimed to find out, in terms of what these profesionals follow, what are the reasons that influenced it, what kind of disatvantages sees of the criminality or legality of euthanasia, and other important things that could help to investigate the the phenomenon of euthanasia and punishability of it. In addition to these things, the criminal responsibility problems of separated forms of euthanasia were resolving in this work. According to the practice of the other countries, and other accomplished researches, it was also aimed to „draw the dividing line“ between separate types of euthanasia, and euthanasia and assisted suicide, trying to reveal qualification of criminal acts and criminal reasonability, according to the penal code of the Republic of Lithuania, that could be the most appropriate for the separate forms as criminal acts of euthanasia. |
