About to be dissolved, as legislative elections were brought forward and will be held on January 30, Portugal’s Parliament rushed to pass a new law to decriminalize euthanasia.
The bill was approved by the deputies this Friday (5) with 138 votes in favour, 84 against and 5 abstentions.
The current text is an adapted version of an earlier bill to decriminalize medically assisted death approved by deputies in January, but which ended up classified as unconstitutional by the highest court in the Portuguese judicial system, the Constitutional Court (TC).
For the magistrates, the problem was not the question of the interruption of life itself, but the unclear definition of the criteria for allowing euthanasia. Shortly after the court’s decision in March, the parties that made the law’s initial approval possible joined together to sidestep the issues raised by the court.
“The purge of unconstitutionalities resulted from a careful and exhaustive analysis of the ruling [do TC], of the path indicated by the same in terms of comparative law. Thus, it was possible to densify the concepts and meet the obstacles of a juridical-constitutional nature pointed out”, stated the socialist deputy and jurist Isabel Moreira, one of the main people responsible for writing the text.
Parliamentarians opted for a solution that follows the model of the euthanasia law approved in Spain, adding, at the beginning of the text, a list of definitions that clarifies key concepts, such as “definitive injury of extreme gravity” and “serious or incurable disease “.
The rules and guidelines for euthanasia are essentially those presented in the previous legislation. That is, although medically assisted death has been decriminalized, there are very restrictive rules for the use of the mechanism.
Only people over 18 years old, who must be Portuguese or foreigners with legal residence in Portugal, can resort to euthanasia. Likewise, only patients in a situation of intolerable suffering, with severe definitive injury or incurable and fatal illness can resort to the procedure, which remains ineligible for those with mental illness.
Stitched over the last few months, the new text had its presentation speeded up after the confirmation of the disapproval of the Portuguese Budget for 2022 and the resulting dissolution of the Assembly of the Republic. The future political composition of the Parliament after the election is still uncertain.
In 2018, in a legislature with fewer left-wing deputies, a bill on euthanasia was rejected with just five votes of difference. Now, the presentation and voting, done in an accelerated manner, was criticized by some deputies, especially from the right-wing parties, who, during a debate on Thursday (4), fired accusations against left-wing parliamentarians, in favor of approving the proposal.
Adão Silva, representative of the biggest opposition party, the PSD (centre-right), said the bill was presented “at the 25th hour, at a time when the end of the current legislature is in sight.” According to the deputy, there were no conditions of rigor and serenity for the approval of the law.
The proposal now goes to the Belém Palace. To enter into force, it needs to be sanctioned by the President of the Republic.
The declaration of unconstitutionality of the previous law happened just after the text reached the head of State. The fact that Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa is a practicing Catholic raised doubts, since the beginning of the discussion, about his willingness to sanction a law that authorizes the interruption of life.
Former professor of constitutional law, he opted for the legal route. Instead of a political veto, he asked the Constitutional Court for an analysis of the law. Although it asked the court to rule only on the “excessively indeterminate” character of the rules that would guarantee access to euthanasia, the court went well beyond these points in its considerations.
Even without having been directly questioned, the magistrates chose to address the fundamental question of the law: the right to ask for the interruption of one’s life. “The right to life cannot be transfigured into a duty to live under any circumstances,” the judges decided, in what was interpreted as an opening to a new text on euthanasia.
.
