Viviane Lambert and her lawyers, Jean Paillot and Jérôme Triomphe, challenge the doctor’s decision to stop treatment.
The mother of Vincent Lambert, who died on July 11 following the cessation of his treatments, has appealed the release of Doctor Sanchez, prosecuted for “failure to assist a person in danger”, his lawyers announced on Monday 3 February. AFP, confirming information from the newspaper The union.
In a decision rendered at first instance by the Reims Criminal Court, the judges followed the prosecutor’s requisitions and affirmed that the head of the palliative care service and of the cerebroleum unit of the Reims teaching hospital had “fully respected its legal obligations”. The court had also found that the action of Vincent Lambert’s parents had not “other reasons than to oppose the Leonetti-Claeys law” on the end of life.
Viviane Lambert and her lawyers, Jean Paillot and Jérôme Triomphe, contest the decision to stop care taken by doctor Sanchez, while the International Committee for the Protection of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CIDPH) of the UN, requested by the parents Lambert, had asked in May 2019 to suspend the cessation of treatment pending a review of the case on the merits.
If France, through the voice of the Minister of Health Agnès Buzyn, had estimated not to be “not held” to comply with this request, the Paris Court of Appeal had ordered the resumption of treatment. But a few weeks later, the Court of Cassation had finally ruled that the court of appeal did not have jurisdiction and had quashed its decision. On July 2, Doctor Vincent Sanchez had started a new cessation of treatment. Vincent Lambert died a few days later.
“We believe that the interim measures requested by the UN are compulsory and are imposed on the French State and on Doctor Sanchez”, Jean Paillot told AFP. “France has ratified the International Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, these provisional measures should apply. (…) I do not object in principle to the law, but to the application made of it to persons disabilities “, he added.
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