Article 143 Spanish Criminal Code: Assisted suicide and euthanasia

Article 143 punishes inciting a suicide, cooperating in it and carrying out the death at the request of the person concerned. Paragraph 5 excludes criminal liability altogether where the death occurs in compliance with the organic act regulating euthanasia, and paragraph 4 requires a reduction of one or two degrees in the remaining cases of grave and incurable suffering.

Wording of Article 143 of the Spanish Criminal Code

Elements of the offence

1. An act of incitement, of necessary cooperation or of direct execution of the death, causally connected to the death of the victim.
2. A free and informed decision of the person who dies. Where that will is vitiated or absent, the conduct falls under homicide or murder and not under this article.
3. Intent covering both the assistance and its lethal outcome. Grossly negligent conduct is not punishable under this provision.
4. In the cases of paragraph 4, an express, serious and unequivocal request together with a serious, chronic and incapacitating condition or a serious and incurable illness with constant and unbearable suffering.

Defence strategy

Absence of a necessary contribution. Paragraph 2 requires cooperation by acts without which the suicide would not have taken place. Ancillary, remote or merely moral assistance falls outside the provision, and the boundary between necessary cooperation and conduct which is not punishable is resolved by causal analysis of the evidence.

Capacity and autonomy of the person who dies. The whole provision presupposes a genuine decision of the person who dies. Clinical evidence of the capacity of that person, and of the absence of pressure or deception, is decisive because it determines whether the case belongs to this article or to Articles 138 and following.

Compliance with the euthanasia framework. Paragraph 5 operates as a complete exclusion of liability. The defence therefore centres on documenting the procedure laid down in the organic act regulating euthanasia, including the successive requests, the consultations and the authorisation, since a purely formal shortcoming does not restore the ordinary penalty where the substantive requirements were met.

Mitigation under paragraph 4. Where the statutory procedure was not followed, paragraph 4 still mandates a reduction of one or two degrees whenever the clinical situation and the request are established. Medical records and expert evidence on the suffering endured are the material on which that reduction is obtained.

• Article 138 CP: homicide
• Article 142 CP: homicide by gross negligence
• Homicide and manslaughter defence in Spain
• Criminal intent and negligence in Spanish law

This entry is provided for information only and does not constitute legal advice. The application of any provision depends on the circumstances of the individual case and requires examination of the case file by a qualified lawyer.