I would like to thank Dignitas for the help to find a solution for RtDE.

When I met with you, Aycke and Hugh in Bergen in March, I told you how much I regretted that the meeting in Edinburg was cancelled. I could not understand then, but I do understand now. I tried to get in touch with Peter Warren and Isabel Alonso, but they suffered too much by what happened since Brussels. So, they did not respond to my offer to help. I must say, I can understand their reaction, but I am feeling sorry for this and hope they will change their mind.

Aycke, you started to organise a meeting in Bergen in May. This will not be possible for Corona-reasons. We need to find a place and date for a meeting in summer. We really need to release the board. You, Aycke and Hugh, have done a lot of work and I know that you are facing also other problems than the ones of succession within RtDE.

What we can read below, all the remarks from Dignitas (I have coloured some in red for my personal use), have not been answered at all by the Board-members. I do know that Jet was hurt too much, and Flemming has too much work himself, so I did not expect any answer from them. But why is there no answer from you, Aycke and Hugh? Would you please explain? Are you having health issues?

Aycke and Hugh, please tell us what you intend to do! I do have the same opinion as Dignitas: RtDE must be saved and renewed, we need to have this umbrella to be more active within Europe.

Flemming and Jet: will you please tell all whether you are intending to stay on the Board, or would you like to be replaced also?

We need to have answers from all of you four people on the Board, as you are still the Board of RtDE and I would like to help to save RtDE, (this is why I have applied to the Board as a new Board member). By not answering to such important emails as the one from Dignitas, we will not find any solution at all.

kind regards, Erika

Dear Board of Right-to-Die Europe (RtDE)

Dear President, Aycke

Dear Colleagues

This message aims primarily to explore paths to a prosperous future with and for RtDE, to provide a few inputs/thoughts by both Dignitas-organisations in Switzerland and Germany, to inform / clarify / rectify on a few aspects, and to hopefully soothe the waves from unfortunate hiccups that have developed over the past weeks and months.

Both Dignitas-organisations have been paid-up members of RtDE for many years. Two Dignitas-employees attended the Brussels meeting of 11 December 2019.

1)

First and foremost, we would like to express our gratitude to you, the board of RtDE, for the many years of good work you have done to keep RtDE running. We think that no-one doubts that, within the resources, you have done a good job the best you could. So, thank you very much for this.

2)

We see the assets of and chances for RtDE as follows:

The first asset is that RtDE has NGO participatory status with the Council of Europe (CoE)https://www.coe.int/en/web/portal/home , the significance of this is explained on the website of the CoE. A second asset, connected to the first one, is that RtDE is, and can further develop to be, a “signpost” in Europe for politicians, lawyers and others, lobbying specifically for European interest; this in contrast or/and complementation to the other umbrella organisation which is the World Federation of Right to Die Societies (WFRtDS), which has the challenge of dealing with a wider scope of work: the world.

The board of RtDE notes that it receives little information and that the number of RtDE members has decreased over time. Some reasons for this may be:

· Some RtDE members have grown, and with better resources professionalised their work, with the result of them having more impact in the public and the law change of their country. Consequently, they do not necessarily “need” the RtDE as much as they may have done so earlier.

· The big workload of all RtDE member organisations often prevents additionally investing time into RtDE issues. This also applies to us, Dignitas, as we have been working internationally for +20 years, being involved in or having led many court cases (such as the one which brought about the acknowledgment of the right to decide on time and manner of one’s own end in life by the European Court of Human Rights) and further work worldwide;

· The WFRtDS has increased its efforts, professionalised its work, and to some extent covers what RtDE is doing/offering => many, if not all, European RtD-organisations are a member of the WFRtDS.

The future, the chances for RtDE is indicated above: To make use of its NGO status by lobbying/working on a European Institution’s level, to become a “signpost” on this level. This, besides providing know-how and to “network-connect” old and new European RtD-organisation; actually, all the things the WFRtDS is doing on a world-level. For this, the WFRtDS may serve as an example of “what an umbrella organisation can do”.

To work on a European Institutions level, to lobby with the Council of Europe, one must work professionally and have political and law know-how. Therefore, on any future board of RtDE it takes at least one board member who has experience with this, who is “structured and knowledgeable as to political and law strategic techniques and thinking” so to say.

3)

Dignitas feels that everyone who attended the Brussels RtDE meeting of 11 December 2019 would agree that no one – neither the RtDE member organisations nor the board – is happy with what happened there. We shall not go into all the details here, of who did and said what or/and didn’t do, also considering the RtDE Constitution. However, we find that one point has to be clarified now, as otherwise we fear it will be (even more) difficult, not to say impossible, to build a good future for RtDE: At the RtDE meeting in Brussels the “group of four” which Aycke mentions in his email below, did neither say nor appear to aim “to take over RtDE”. Furthermore, the statement, the “group failed to present any or proper information as to their intentions to the Delegates beforehand” does not make sense because at least Isabel Alonso Davila, Peter Warren and Jean Jacques Schonckert could not anticipate what was to happen at this RtDE meeting since they are not on the RtDE-board and no prior general assembly agenda was circulated (though, done by Jet, a concept note for the day program with MEP Hilde Vautmans and others).

At the meeting, two of the board – Aycke as president and treasurer Hugh – informed about stepping back. Without prior notice. So, Peter Warren, Isabel Davila and Jacques Schonckert offered their resources to support RtDE which in due course was Peter Warren offering to organise and starting to make arrangements for a meeting in Scotland, Edinburgh, with the help of Friends At The End (FATE). It is evident that he was in touch with the RtDE board during this time.

Also, during this time, Peter Warren was in touch with Dignitas in a few phone calls; we can confirm from these conversations that Peter Warren at no time displayed any intention to take over RtDE. He repeatedly said his intention was to help RtDE in the current situation (despite not having much time resources for this), that Isobel and Jean Jacques felt the same way, that everything was done to bring about a RtDE meeting on a positive note, to give those board members of RtDE who had communicated to step down a proper farewell-procedure with a an appropriate applause for the undisputedly good work done, and most importantly that whether he, Peter Warren himself, or anyone else would be elected, was not of relevance to him. All that was of relevance was/is a proper meeting / assembly.

We would like to add that we have known Peter Warren since the days when he was personal academic assistant to late Margo McDonald, member of the Scottish Parliament, who with the support of Peter Warren (and in the background Dignitas, and others) succeeded in carrying the “Assisted Suicide (Scotland) Bill” into Parliament for discussion – a novum in Scotland. In all the years of exchange between Peter Warren and Dignitas, there never was anything which would have given Dignitas raise to doubts about his honesty, integrity, good intentions, and competence in the field of political and law aspects of RtD-issues.

4)

Going back to looking at ways forward for RtDE:

In the meantime, Dr Erika Preisig has met with the board of RtDE, to discuss about a new meeting. Erika Preisig suggested that Dignitas-Germany together with the “Deutsche Gesellschaft für Humanes Sterben” (DGHS) – DGHS not being a member of RtDE – help to arrange a follow-up meeting for RtDE. Dignitas and DGHS discussed the issue. We must inform you now that DGHS has no time-resources and this also applies to Dignitas-Germany, and Dignitas in Switzerland. This, because since having been successful with the constitutional court complaints abolishing the prohibition of professional assistance in suicide, DGHS, Dignitas-Germany and Dignitas Switzerland have a big workload to help Germans to finally have their right; besides, the opponents of assisted suicide in Germany, also in the Parliament, are not yet beaten: they already work on a new law which certainly does not aim at real freedom of choice for suffering individuals.

Beyond this, a meeting soon seems hardly possible in the light of no one knowing about the length of the now coronavirus situation, and a lot of services are being “grounded” at this time.

As an alternative, what can be considered, is a RtDE meeting / general assembly to take place “online”, that is via internet communication video-conference software such as Skype.

We feel that the board of RtDE should now use the time to immediately sort out issues with Isabel Alonso Davila, Jean Jacques Schonckert, Peter Warren, and any others, so that all energy, as much as there is to spare in the light of other tasks and the now political and coronavirus situation, is invested in building the RtDE future. So, this message is also a call to pull yourselves together, set egos aside and work together. Otherwise, RtDE will further lose on significance, lose on image, and hardly gain respect of old and new RtDE members, the public, and moreover the professionals at the CoE and other European Institutions. This would be a shame, and it cannot be what past and present board members, as well as others, for many years have worked for.

Yours sincerely

for and on behalf of the boards of both Dignitas organisations

Ludwig A. Minelli – Silvan Luley – Sandra Martino