The Government of Grenovia, Europe, has announced that all suicides from the 1st day of the coming month will compulsorily need to have a suicide note. A government official made this announcement on state television, banning any self-death without a note stating the reason for the sinister act.
“Every time there is a suspicious death, the various departments fight over who should work on the case, causing significant delays”
Government Official, Grenovia
Suicide by itself is banned in Grenovia unless you fail in your attempt. The new law is said to further discourage the action, which has been declared to be against national interest by the nationalist party in power, which is struggling with population de-growth. However, the main reason for bringing one more law about suicide is that every time there is a suspicious death, the various departments fight over who should work on the case, causing significant delays in deciding who should be punished for the death, as per the statement released by the government official.
Just last month, an incident emerged where the case was passed over like a tennis ball between the homicide and suicide departments, when a man who had disappeared was said to have committed suicide. But the case had gone from the suicide department to the homicide department due to suspicion towards the wife, but the case then moved back to the suicide department when it was discovered that he had not actually married her, thus proving that she had no reason to kill him if he wasn’t her husband.
As if this wasn’t enough, the blame later went to the same ‘girlfriend’ after some evidence was unearthed about the man having cheated on her, giving a clear case of ‘intent’. The case was thus back to the homicide department, only to go back to the suicide department when it turned out that he might have been briefly married to her in the past, thus making her an ex-wife. Having a wife at any point in life can be seen as a suspicion for suicide, as per the said departments. After a few more back and forth movements, and after wasting 578 man hours of both the departments, however, it came to light that he was terminally ill, and so the case ultimately moved to the euthanasia department (mercy killing) straight from the suicide department.
All this confusion of cases bouncing between departments will soon come to an end due to this law, the government hopes. “Having a suicide note with some background information not only clarifies which department should get the case to solve but also gives a clue about who to catch if it later turns out to be a homicide” said the government official, when the Bonnet Bots interviewed her. But the Bots questioned, “If there is a suicide note, wouldn’t it be obvious that it’s not a homicide?” “Exactly,” said the official, and continued, “and this same clarity is the reason we are making suicide notes compulsory.”
At the time of going to press, the official had released a standard format that could be used for the suicide notes. This caused quite a furor among the human rights professionals of Grenovia, post which the official clarified that the format was only ‘advisory and not binding’ on the person writing the suicide note.
Image Credits: Cover Photo by Meruyert Gonullu from Pexels (image modified)