The president of Portugal, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, once again vetoed the decriminalization of euthanasia in the country. The head of state returned the law, approved on November 5, to Parliament and asked for further clarification on the text.
The movement of Rebelo de Sousa, a practicing Catholic, pushes the decision on medically assisted death to the next legislature. Depending on the composition of the Assembly of the Republic after the early elections on January 30, there is a possibility that euthanasia will not be approved again.
This is the second time that the Portuguese president has vetoed the implementation of euthanasia. On the first occasion, Rebelo de Sousa sent the law, approved in January 2021, for analysis by the Constitutional Court, the highest court in the country.
The magistrates declared that some parts of the law were unconstitutional, but left the way open for Parliament to make changes to correct the problematic points.
The explicit declaration that medically assisted death did not violate the Constitution of Portugal was interpreted as a nod by the court to the law’s viability.
The deputies then presented a text that changed the original law. After the call for early elections, made by the president after the failure to pass the 2022 Budget, lawmakers rushed to approve euthanasia before the end of the legislature.
The new euthanasia discrimination wording was approved by a large majority on 5 November.
Rebelo de Sousa has now opted for the so-called political veto, returning the text to deputies with questions about “what seem to be contradictions in the law as to one of the causes of resorting to medically assisted death”. In the decision, the president says he was motivated by “unexpected perplexities” introduced in the new version of the legislation.
To journalists, this Tuesday afternoon (30), the head of state denied that his decision was motivated by religious issues. “My personal religious, ethical conviction would be much more critical of the law, but the president is not there to enforce his ethical, religious, or political conviction.”
Rebelo de Sousa claims that the new version of the euthanasia law corrected the points indicated by the Constitutional Court, but created other problematic situations that would make its implementation unfeasible.
“In the first law, I sent them to the Constitutional Court because I had doubts on points that did not respect the Constitution. The Assembly of the Republic corrected them, and so I did not send them to the Constitutional. But, when correcting the points, it changed others and changed the law “, he said.
The new presidential veto was criticized by several lawmakers.
One of the drafters of the law, Deputy Isabel Moreira of the Socialist Party, said the president tried to give a legal appearance to a political decision. “The president of the Republic makes an absolutely atypical veto, because he formally uses the political veto and, however, pursues legal considerations that should be the responsibility of the Constitutional Court,” he said, in statements to the SIC NotÃcias network.
In 2018, in a Parliament with fewer leftist representatives, a bill on the subject was rejected with just five votes of difference.
The president’s political veto can still be overturned by deputies. According to the regulations of the Assembly of the Republic, however, the assessment of a vetoed diploma can only be made after at least 15 days after receiving the decision.
As the Parliament needs to be dissolved by December 6 —the deadline to allow for the holding of elections—, the final decision is, in practice, in the hands of the future composition of the assembly.
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