UNI
 
Washington, Jan 18: Upholding the Oregon State's doctor-assisted suicide law by a 6-3 vote, the US Supreme Court has snubbed the Bush administration which attempted to punish the medicos who helped terminally ill patients die.

The federal government had argued that Oregon's 8-year-old Death with Dignity Act violated federal anti-drug laws. More than 200 terminally ill Oregonians have used the law to end their lives by taking a prescribed overdose of drugs.

It also marked the first loss for Chief Justice John Roberts, who joined other members -- Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas - to express dissent with the law.

Oregon is the only state in the United States where doctor-assisted suicide is legal. Under Oregon law, a doctor can prescribe a lethal dose of medication to a terminally ill patient of sound mind who makes the request in writing, with witnesses, repeats it at least two weeks later and meets other requirements. The patient must swallow the drug; it cannot be administered by anyone else.

A court majority said the Oregon law trumped federal authority to regulate doctors. With Justice Anthony Kennedy writing the majority opinion, the Court ruled that the Bush administration overstepped the boundaries of federal power when it threatened to prosecute Oregon doctors who prescribe overdoses to end a patient's life under the Oregon law.

The Court's ruling invalidates an ''interpretive ruling'' issued in November 2001 by then-Attorney General John Ashcroft declaring that assisted suicide did not constitute a ''legitimate medical purpose'' under the federal Controlled Substances Act.

Ashcroft ''lacked authority to issue the interpretive rule,'' Justice Kennedy said as he delivered the majority opinion in open court on Tuesday morning. If allowed to stand, Ashcroft's ruling ''would shift radically'' the limits of federal and state powers, he added.

The 'right to die' issue became a topic of household debate in the US last year during a protracted and anguished legal battle over Terri Schiavo, a Florida woman who died after the feeding tube that had kept her alive for 15 years was removed.

Most Americans disapproved of the unorthodox measures taken by members of the House and President Bush to defy repeated court rulings allowing Schiavo's husband to order the tube removed.