Zaprzestanie uporczywej terapii na tle orzeczenia Europejskiego Trybunału Praw Człowieka w sprawie Lambert i inni przeciwko Francji

The article refers to the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights, dated on June 5th, 2015, in the case of Lambert and others v. France. The author of the paper tries to answer the question, what is the meaning of the judgment for the ways of analysing the issues of the end of human life, with a particular tension on the therapeutic abstention on the basis of the European Human Rights Convention. In order to reach this aim, there is an analysis of the factual and legal background of the case provided. The next part consists of the discussion of the legal problems aroused within this case. The first one is the granting of right to the margin of appreciation to France. Then the author tries to answer the fundamental issue of the analysis of the case - whether artificial feeding and hydration are a form of therapy and whether the conditions of holding the therapy obstinate in the French law are in accordance with the demands of the Convention. Further issues refer to the priority of the patient’s will while taking the decision of abstaining from the obstinate therapy and the problems of taking those decisions with regard to the patients deprived of consciousness (incompetent). The article tries to answer the question, what is the direction of the future jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights in questions regarding the end of human life and what is its meaning to the way of understanding the value from the Convention in the member states and for the direction of change of the member states legislation within this issue.