Euthanasia Law ended the new judgment of the Constitutional Court

The theme was on the agenda of the last legislatures, during which the left had a clear majority in Parliament, but between comings and goings to Bethlehem and the Constitutional Court, the law of euthanasia did not see the light of day – and now, it will hardly see.

The law of medically assisted death, voted and approved in Parliament, for the first time in January 2021, was never regulated or entering into force in Portugal. Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa did his best for hindering a law that he does not agree and now, at the end of his term, it is very likely that he has achieved it, with the help of the Constitutional Court (TC), which was called three times to comment on the law.

If the first few times, the counselors judges only requested minor adjustments, promptly answered by the deputies, the truth is that it was in the last judgment, already entered after the promulgation of the law, that the appreciation of the TC, eventually unfeasible the process of legalization of euthanasia.

When Admiral Gouveia and Melo said, in an interview with CNN, to be pro-life and have many doubts in the enactment of the Euthanasia Law, if he reaches him, sending her to the Constitutional Court, there were many voices that came to say that the law was approved and that it would now have to be regulated.

But the process does not seem to be so simple. It is that already after the law was passed, missing only to be regulated, the CDS made a request to the provider of justice (the now Minister of Internal Affairs Maria Lúcia Amaral), to send the law to the Constitutional Court, as the party was prevented from doing so. Simultaneously a group of PSD deputies made the same request for successive inspection. Although requests for inspection, because they are successive, do not prevent the law from coming into force, the truth is that the last government preferred to wait for this TC verdict before regulating euthanasia.

The new judgment appeared in April, already in time of electoral pre-campaign and, according to various jurists, makes this process unfeasible, that is, it is necessary a new law passed in Parliament, so that medically assisted death can see the light of day again.

Several deputies involved in the process have been defending in recent days the idea that it is sufficient to remove some articles from the diploma so that the process can move forward. But several jurists, even those who support the law are unanimous in considering that this process is dead.

Teresa Violante, constitutionalist and one of the greatest supporters of the legalization of euthanasia in Portugal, left no doubt in a recent interview with the newspaper Público:

«It is a legal absence. That is, it does not need a great political exercise to rise as long as there is a parliamentary majority needed to do so. Judges expressly say that without a legal regime that guarantees the obligation of a physical examination to the applicant of euthanasia by a specialist doctor, it is the very decision to legalize the medically assisted death that is inquired. The whole legal regime was invalidated until the legislator solves the problem.

And in response to those who dispute this interpretation, considering that it is sufficient to eliminate the problematic articles of the law, teresa violating is clear, ‘makes no sense at all. Not only did they not correct it, but they said that no legalization of medically assisted death is possible without this problem being resolved. Because it is the very legitimacy of this legalization that is imposed on the principle of prohibiting the insufficient protection of human life.

With this reading of the new judgment, the majority, now on the right in Parliament, does not intend to reopen the process. On the left, even adding the votes of the liberal initiative, which from the beginning defended the legalization of euthanasia, there are not enough deputies to pass the law. AD and arrival deputies have a clear majority in the Assembly of the Republic and, in this respect, are in agreement: they are against the reopening of the subject. Four years later, the legalization of euthanasia is postponed at least until the end of this legislature.