By Park Si-soo
Staff Reporter
The Constitutional Court Sunday rejected a petition seeking legislation that would allow suspension of medical treatment for a comatose patient with little chance of recovery.
In rejecting the petition, the court said the suspension of treatment should be determined by the patient, not by law.
The ruling was made after a petition in June by children of Kim Ok-kyung, a 77-year-old woman in a vegetative state who became the nation's first person allowed to have death with dignity under a Supreme Court ruling.
Despite the removal of life support from Kim in June, she is still showing stable vital signs.
With no law or legal guideline permitting the treatment stoppage, the verdict emphasizes that the judiciary should hold an exclusive right to decide whether to allow a terminally ill patient to be removed from life support.
In the petition, Kim's children said, "The absence of a law allowing the treatment suspension forced her to undergo 'meaningless' treatment for a long time, infringing upon her right to pursue happiness," and asked the court to order the National Assembly to enact a law allowing the death with dignity ㅡ a physician-assisted death with certain restrictions, or passive euthanasia.
Eight of the nine judges of the court dismissed the petition, saying, "A patient has the right to suspend receiving medical treatment if deemed unnecessary, which is protected by the Constitution. But it's unnecessary for a state to enact a law to actively protect the right."
Kim lapsed into a coma in February last year after excessive bleeding caused by a botched endoscopy procedure at the Yonsei Severance Hospital in northern Seoul.
Until the Supreme Court's ruling, she had been hospitalized with a feeding tube and other life support systems attached to her.
Her children filed a suit, demanding the removal of the equipment in respect to a wish she made when she was healthy. According to her children, Kim consistently said that if she fell into a coma without reasonable chance of recovery, she would refuse to extend her life through medical treatment.
Acknowledging her demand, a provincial court made a landmark ruling in favor of death with dignity in November last year. And the Supreme Court upheld the decision in May, making it necessary for legislators to address the physician-assisted death to prevent similar cases in the future.
Amid heated debate over the issue, a doctors' group announced in July a package of concrete guidelines for the stoppage of what critics call "meaningless treatment," but fell short of mustering unanimous supports from other doctors and concerned parties.