PARIS — A top court in France on Friday paved the way to remove life support from a man who has been in a vegetative state for more than a decade, capping a yearslong legal battle in a landmark case on the right to die.
The court struck down a lower court’s ruling that had ordered doctors to continue artificially feeding and hydrating Vincent Lambert, 42, a nurse who was left in a vegetative state after a car accident in 2008. Because Mr. Lambert did not leave written instructions about his end-of-life wishes, his family has been bitterly divided over his treatment.
His parents and other relatives argue that he is not suffering and should be kept alive. His wife, Rachel Lambert, and others say he would not have wanted to live this way and should be taken off life support.
Doctors first decided to take him off life support in 2013, in consultation with Mr. Lambert’s wife, after years of physical therapy and care had failed to improve his condition. But his parents, who are Roman Catholic, opposed the decision and obtained a court ruling that reversed it.
Years of legal dispute wound its way through top French and European courts. Then, last month, with the cooperation of his wife — who was made his legal guardian in 2016 — doctors at a hospital in the northeastern French city of Reims stopped feeding and hydrating him, and began administering strong doses of sedatives to avoid any suffering for the patient.
But hours later, a Paris appeals court granted a legal challenge filed by his parents’ lawyers to stop the process.
The court ruled that France had to put Mr. Lambert back on life support, pending review of his case by a United Nations-affiliated body, the Committee on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities, where Mr. Lambert’s parents had referred his case.
On Friday, France’s highest court, the Cour de Cassation, said in a statement that the appeals court was not “competent” to make that ruling.
The Cour de Cassation’s ruling is technically final, but it was not immediately clear when Mr. Lambert might be taken off life support.
Medical experts define a vegetative state as a condition that occurs when the part of the brain that controls thought and behavior no longer works, but vital functions such as the sleep cycle, body temperature control and breathing persist. Such patients can sometimes open their eyes and have basic reflexes, but they do not have meaningful responses to stimulation and do not display any sign of experiencing emotions.
While euthanasia is illegal in France, the law allows “passive euthanasia,” in which terminally ill or injured patients with no chance of recovery are taken off life support and put under heavy sedation until their death, after extensive consultation with their families and medical experts.
In 2015, doctors refused to carry out such a procedure in Mr. Lampert’s case despite a court order — the third at the time — because they said there was not enough “serenity and security” in the case after the hospital staff had received threats.
His parents and their supporters argue that he is not terminally ill and is therefore disabled, but does not fall under the purview of France’s legislation regarding end-of-life decisions.
Mr. Lambert’s wife and her supporters point to multiple medical assessments that found her husband to be in an irreversible vegetative state, and to court rulings that said artificial means of keeping him alive constituted “unreasonable obstinacy” as defined by French law.
