Aid In Dying legally allowed
Aid In Dying not legally allowed
Legal Developments
Australia
Federal Australia
In Australia, they speak about Voluntary Assisted Dying (VAD) when it comes to laws that create possibilities for assisted suicide.
The Australian Parliament’s Euthanasia Laws Act 1997 removed the power of the Parliaments in the ACT and the NT to debate and pass voluntary assisted dying laws. Numerous attempts have been unsuccessful in restoring these powers to the Territories.
Of Australia’s six states, four of them already have a VAD law: Victoria (2017), Western Australia (2019), Tasmania (2021) and South Australia (2021). Queensland will probably have a law adopted later this year. In the remaining state, New South Wales (whose capital is Sydney), MPs will become under pressure to pass a VAD law too.
The ironic thing is that the Northern Territory was the first region on earth where euthanasia was legalized. However, this was for a short time only (1997-1998). Then, the Australian federal government overturned this law: only 9 months after the act came into effect, it was repealed by the federal parliament. Human rights law exists at Federal level and covers the Territories. Territories now, unlike the states in Australia, no longer have the authority to pass such laws. After 1998 (the repeal of the Northern Territory Rights of the Terminally Ill Act by the federal state of Australia) it has taken 20 years before a new bill on assisted dying was voted into a law in Australia. This was succeeded in the state Victoria in 2017.
Australia