Crime of directing suicide

In the Turkish Constitution, the article 17/1 determines that everyone has right to life, protect and develop their material and nonmaterial assets. No one's right to life can be violated. All violation should be punish regarding Turkish Penal Code. The right to life is one of the fundamental rights of an individual. On the other hand, the legislations cannot prevent individuals' from their own violation. Therefore, suicide is an extension of freedom to not to live. People may experience different social, cultural, economic, psychological and health issues. These challenges have potential to emerge a reflection on individuals' spirit, transforming their misery to a desire for emancipation that constitute a suicide phenomenon. Suicide, long time ago, was considered among as a crime. With the dissemination of the idea of modern criminal law, suicide is no longer a crime but the inducement to suicide is. There are two purposes, describing actions as crime, such as assistance, conviction, encouragement and inducement to suicide. The purpose is to prevent external interventions which violate individuals' right to life and it has been advocated that these kind of actions should remain unpenalized. Because, the protection seeks to ensure individuals' right to life in legal perspective. Section intituled, "The distinction of inducting suicide from other similar acts" explains that euthanasia and killing on demand has different meanings and they are not defined in the framework of inducing suicide regarding comparative law and the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) judgments. It is seen that assistance to suicide is evaluated with euthanasia in the comparative law. Especially, it is accepted as "proud death" regarding deadly ill people; consequently, patients' lives can be ended as a consequence of right of the self-determination, through assistance of doctors. On the other hand, Turkey has not any regulation on the matter. In our work, the legal dimension of suicide and suicide orientation will be examined and the "directing suicide" will be examined in the Turkish Penal Code No. 765 and in particular Article 84 of the Turkish Penal Code No. 5237. In the study, doctrine, comparative legal provisions are examined and judicial decisions from domestic courts and from ECHR has been studied. Keywords: Suicide, Directing Suicide, Assissted Suicide, Euthanasia, Turkish Penal Code no.5237