DignitySA's constitutional case for a compassionate, carefully safeguarded legal framework in South Africa.
Some South Africans, facing a terminal or irremediable illness and suffering they cannot bear, ask their doctor for help to die. Today the law forces the doctor to refuse, and leaves the patient to keep suffering, travel abroad, or die alone.
DignitySA is not arguing for an unregulated shortcut. We are asking for a legal framework that recognises dignity, autonomy and compassion, paired with careful clinical assessment and context-appropriate safeguards.
MAiD is currently unlawful in South Africa, and DignitySA cannot assist anyone to die while the law remains unchanged. Our work is public-interest advocacy, legal reform, education, and support for people navigating the lawful end-of-life choices that already exist.
UPDATE as of 22 July 2026: We welcome the decision by the National Director of Public Prosecutions (NDPP) not to oppose our landmark constitutional challenge for the decriminalisation and legalisation of medical assistance in dying (MAiD). In a notice, filed on 15 July 2026, the NDPP indicated that it will abide by the decision of the North Gauteng High Court.
The NDPP is the last of the four respondents cited in DignitySA’s court application to make its position known. Its decision means that, together with the Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development, who declined to oppose the application in May, the two respondents responsible for the criminal-justice dimension of this case will accept whatever decision the court makes.
Our application remains before the court, and the Minister of Health and the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) will oppose the application. As this is a public interest case, we will be approaching the Deputy Judge President of the North Gauteng High Court to ask for a case management directive that provides timelines for these parties to file their papers.
UPDATE as of 10 July 2026: To date, we have heard from three of the four respondents. The Minister of Health and the Health Professions Council (HPCSA) will oppose our case. The Minister of Justice & Constitutional Development has confirmed that she will not oppose our case, and will abide by whatever decision the court makes.
We have not received any response from the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), despite it being two months past its deadline.
What happens next?
Because this is a critical public-interest case, our next step is to request a meeting with the Deputy Judge President (DJP) of the North Gauteng High Court. We will ask the DJP for a case management directive, which is an official court instruction that sets strict timelines for the remaining parties to file their papers, and how exchanges will happen in future.
If we cannot secure this meeting, we already have a preliminary court date set for September 18th, where we will formally ask the court to step in and enforce a timetable.
UPDATE as of 9 June 2026: The Minister of Health, Dr Aaron Motsoaledi, has indicated that he will oppose DignitySA’s constitutional challenge. We anticipated this, and now wait to hear how the fourth and final respondent, the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), will respond.
UPDATE as of 4 June 2026: The Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development, Ms Mmamoloko Kubayi, has indicated that she will not to oppose our constitutional challenge and that she will abide by the decision of the North Gauteng High Court. This is a significant development that reflects a growing recognition that the current common law prohibition against medical assistance in dying (MAiD) cannot be reconciled with South Africa’s constitutional commitments to dignity and compassion.
UPDATE as of 27 May 2026: The deadline for the four respondents in our case to indicate if they oppose us was the 8th of May. To date, only the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) has done so. We do not know what the other three respondents’ intentions are (the Minister of Health, the Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development and the National Prosecuting Authority). We now await (at least) the HPCSA’s answering affidavit. Amici curiae (friends of the court) may join the appellant, DignitySA or respondents. Then DignitySA will have the opportunity to submit a replying affidavit. Once all the documentation has been submitted, the parties will meet in court.
DignitySA’s application rests on constitutional law, clinical evidence and comparative safeguards. It is ultimately about South Africans whose suffering makes the absence of a lawful choice cruel. Two of them are below.
Living case study
Dieter was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease in 2013. More than a decade later he is still living, still competent, and still asking why South African law denies him the choice he wants to keep open.
“…when my innermost fear of death is replaced by the fear to live, the point of no return has been reached.”
Dieter Harck
Dieter has joined DignitySA’s constitutional challenge so that his question is heard while he can still ask it himself.
Family testimony
Craig lived with neurofibromatosis from infancy. By 28, after a lifetime of operations, fibromas, brain-tumour surgery and pain that medicine could no longer reach, he asked his parents to let him go.
“Even the strongest soldiers grow weak.”
Craig Schonegevel
South African law could not give Craig what he asked for. He died alone on 1 September 2009, not in his mother’s arms as he had wanted. His mother Patsy now tells his story so that the next family will not face the same wall.
The press conference at the Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation brought DignitySA’s legal, medical and advocacy arguments together with the lived experience of families and people facing serious illness.
The venue was deliberate. Archbishop Desmond Tutu publicly supported the principle that dying people should be able to choose how and when they leave this world, and DignitySA’s case carries that question into South African constitutional law.
See what the application asks for
International terminology differs, but the core features are consistent: consent, capacity, medical assessment and safeguards.
Medical assistance in dying is considered only after a competent person makes an informed, voluntary request. The request must come from the patient, not from family, clinicians or an institution.
The request is assessed by healthcare professionals against strict legal criteria, with attention to diagnosis, prognosis, capacity, voluntariness, alternatives and safeguards.
DignitySA is advocating for a carefully regulated option for people whose suffering cannot be acceptably relieved, while protecting vulnerable people from pressure or abuse.
A medical practitioner or authorised practitioner provides or prescribes the means, and the person takes the final step themselves.
A medical practitioner or authorised practitioner administers the intervention at the person's explicit, informed and voluntary request.
On 9 April 2026, DignitySA lodged an application concerning MAiD with the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria. The application asks the court to declare the current blanket common-law prohibition unconstitutional, unlawful and invalid.
DignitySA asks that the declaration of invalidity be suspended for 24 months so that Parliament can bring the law on MAiD in line with the Constitution and craft legislation appropriate for South Africa.
The case concerns competent, informed persons with a terminal or irremediable condition whose suffering is unbearable or intolerable and cannot be alleviated by an acceptable treatment option.
Filed
DignitySA lodged its MAiD application with the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria.
Relief sought
The application asks the court to declare the blanket common-law prohibition unconstitutional, unlawful and invalid.
Parliament
DignitySA asks that Parliament be given 24 months to bring the law on MAiD in line with the Constitution.
Who the case concerns
The proposed class is people with a terminal or irremediable condition causing unbearable or intolerable suffering.
The case does not ask the court to ignore vulnerability. It asks for a regulated framework that protects vulnerable people while respecting the autonomy of those whose suffering has become intolerable.
These local and foreign expert reports are part of DignitySA’s case submission. They support the court application with South African medical and bioethics evidence, and comparative evidence from countries where assisted dying is legally regulated.
Local expert report: South Africa
Local expert report: South Africa
Prof Fieggen's report is especially useful here. It treats palliative care as a necessary partner to any future MAiD framework, not as a substitute for it. His report recommends that MAiD be connected to funded palliative-care expansion, palliative-care verification and hospital-based ethics support.
Open the Fieggen Expert ReportEvidence on eligibility, palliative-care integration, clinical practice, professional training and national monitoring in a jurisdiction where MAiD is part of healthcare law.
Expert evidence on a long-established Belgian model where assisted dying and palliative care have developed in parallel.
Evidence from Dutch due-care criteria and consultation requirements developed through decades of regulated practice.
Evidence on state-based voluntary assisted dying frameworks, training, care navigation and oversight in a federated system.
Evidence from an upper-middle-income country with hospital committee models and strict eligibility criteria, relevant to South African context-setting.
The filed documents are public. They have been grouped here so that readers can find the core application, supporting evidence, local expert reports and foreign expert reports without wading through a single combined bundle.
The filed motion papers and the navigational index for the court application.
DignitySA background, Prof Willem Landman's CV and the SAMJ doctors' editorial supporting decriminalisation.
Personal and public narratives showing why the legal question matters in lived South African experience.
South African expert evidence filed in support of the application, including medical and bioethics analysis of how a safeguarded MAiD framework could work locally.
Comparative expert evidence filed with the application, drawing on jurisdictions where assisted dying is lawful and regulated.
Comparative material on jurisdictions where MAiD is lawful or regulated.
While MAiD remains unlawful, DignitySA cannot help anyone end their life. We can, however, walk you through every lawful end-of-life choice already available in South Africa, and share what is happening with the constitutional challenge.
Palliative care can relieve pain, distress and family strain and should be available early in serious illness, not only in the final days.
Patients can refuse unwanted treatment, and legally authorised decision-makers can speak when the patient cannot.
A living will and Section 7 Mandate help document future healthcare wishes and appoint a trusted decision-maker.
If someone feels overwhelmed or at risk, urgent support matters. SADAG can be reached on 0800 567 567 or by SMS to 31393.
Assisted dying frameworks now exist in a range of jurisdictions, each with its own eligibility rules, oversight mechanisms and clinical practice. DignitySA's case draws on this comparative evidence while asking what is suitable for South African law, health-system realities and constitutional values.
DignitySA is a member of the World Federation of Right to Die Societies, an international network of organisations working to advance choice and dignity at the end of life.
Visit the World FederationThis case belongs to anyone who has ever watched a loved one ask for a choice the law would not give. Public support keeps the legal work moving.
