Suffering from prostate cancer, a retired South African advocate has died on the same day that the Pretoria High Court ruled he could legally end his life.
His family did not say if he died before or after the judge passed what they called a ground-breaking judgment.
end intro
The family of 65-year-old Robert Stransham Ford say he died peacefully in the presence of family and carers.
Dignity SA, which lobbies for assisted suicide legislation, specifies he dies of natural causes.
The organisation says it expects the ruling to set in motion the process of legalising assisted dying in South Africa
The High Court in Pretoria ruled that Stransham-Ford could have a doctor help him die and
that the doctor would be protected from prosecution.
Medically-assisted suicide remains illegal in South Africa, but there have
been growing calls for it to be legalised.
Judge Hans Fabricius saYS in his ruling that Stransham-Ford was entitled
to end his life, either by administration of a lethal agent or by providing
the applicant with the necessary lethal agent to administer himself.
Five years ago, a South African professor, Sean Davison, living in New Zealand was found guilty by a court there of helping his cancer-stricken mother take her own life.
He was placed under house arrest for five months.
Man dies on the day court ruling enables legal suicide
Enquire about availability for radio, podcasts, reporting or opinion pieces.
Jean-Jacques Cornish is a journalist and broadcaster who has been involved in the media all his adult life.
Starting as a reporter on his hometown newspaper, he moved briefly to then Rhodesia before returning to South Africa to become a parliamentary correspondent with the South African Press Association. He was sent to London as Sapa’s London editor and also served as special correspondent to the United Nations. He joined the then Argus group in London as political correspondent.
Returning to South Africa after 12 years abroad, he was assistant editor on the Pretoria News for a decade before becoming editor of the Star and SA Times for five years.
Since 1999 he’s been an independent journalist writing and broadcasting – mainly about Africa – for Talk Radio 702 and 567 Cape
Talk, Radio France International, PressTV, Radio Live New Zealand, Business Day, Mail & Guardian, the BBC, Agence France Press,
Business in Africa, Leadership, India Today, the South African Institute for International Affairs and the Institute for Security Studies.
He has hosted current affairs talk shows on Talk Radio 702 and 567 Cape Talk. He appears as an African affairs pundit on SABC Africa and CNBC Africa.
He lectured in contemporary studies to journalism students at the Tshwane University of Technology and the University of Pretoria.
He speaks on African affairs to corporate and other audiences.
He has been officially invited as a journalist to more than 30 countries. He was the winner of the 2007 SADC award for radio journalism.
He’s been a member of the EISA team observing elections in Somaliland, Democratic Republic of Congo, Madagascar, Zimbabwe, Egypt and Tunsiai.
In October 2009 he headed a group of 39 African journalists to the 60th anniversary celebrations of the Peoples’ Republic of China.
In January 2010 he joined a rescue and paramedical team to earthquake struck Haiti.
He is immediate past president of the Alliance Francaise of Pretoria.
Jean-Jacques is a director of Giant Media. The company was given access to Nelson Mandela in his retirement years until 2009.
He is co-producer of the hour-long documentary Mandela at 90 that was broadcast on BBC in January 2009.
Search news by country
Web design by Web Guys