Euthanasia in Albania

• Author: Beslinda Rrugia
• Position: Aleksander Moisiu University, Albania
• Pages: 86-90

ISSN 2410-3918

Acces online at www.iipccl.org IIPCCL Publishing, Tirana-Albania

Academic Journal of Business, Administration, Law and Social Sciences Vol. 2 No. 1

March 2016

86

Euthanasia in Albania

PhD (C.) Beslinda Rrugia

Aleksander Moisiu University, Albania

Abstract

The right to live is a right guaranteed by the constitution as well as international legal acts in

force in a country, and is based on the moral of a society. But does the right to live imply a

parallel individual right to die? Or should the state protect the right to life of a person who

does not want to live anymore, going like this against the will of that person? Albanian

anthropology, as a post-communist society lacks the tradition of freedom, as in this case of the

freedom that belongs to a man affected by an incurable disease. For this reason, in Albania

not only we do not have a law on euthanasia, but the issue of euthanasia is not raised as an

issue nor by the legislator nor by civil society. The purpose of this paper is to give an overview

of euthanasia in Albania, as well as on some specific problems facing the Albanian reality.

The methodology used in the paper consists with the combination of comparing legal provisions

of euthanasia (or the lack of them) in a vertical historical continuity.

Keywords: euthanasia, death, living in dignity, law on euthanasia.

Introduction

This work in particular will deal with one aspect of the right to life, the issue of

euthanasia.In a time when in Albania there is still no law on euthanasia, nor even a

specific criminal offense provided by the criminal code, the research is interesting to

study the present situation but also to predict which should be the future steps to be

undertaken in Albania.

The right to life that is guaranteed by the Albanian Constitution implies also living in

dignity (Omari, Anastasi, 2008, 122). So the attention of the legislator is extended not

only to guarantee life as a biological concept, but also to the quality of life who suffer

from serious diseases that wish death instead of life.

Mitrush Kuteli a famous Albanian writer expressed in his will in his last days of life:

“Death is the great rest, the detachment from pain. Indeed, even from joy, but at a

time when one is bored, death is salvation: from both physical and spiritual pain.

Both heavy.”1

The concept of euthanasia

In Albania, the issue of euthanasia has not had major repercussions. Very few, almost

nothing is said about its depenalization. This is related to the lack of a tradition of

protecting human rights in our country. During the communist regime the right to

live was not even formally guaranteed by the constitution.

When the democratic constitution of 1998 was first drafted, its Article 21 which protects

1 www.voal.ch.