The request for successive inspections had already been announced in advance when the law was approved by parliament in May, although the bank’s leadership did not promote this, as there was always freedom to vote in the PSD parliamentary group on decriminalization of medically assisted death .
Speaking to Lusa, deputy João Paulo Barbosa de Melo explained that it was “exhaustive work” by a group of deputies, with the legal support of former Foreign Minister and TC advisor Joaquim Pedro Cardoso da Costa, which resulted in a 300 page report. application, reported by Rádio Renascença and the newspaper Público and to which the Lusa agency had access today.
“There are two steps in this request: to question the law as a whole, which in our opinion could violate the principle of the sanctity of human life, from which it follows that the right to self-determined death of human beings does not exist in the Constitution,” said the deputy and former president of the Chamber of Coimbra.
Although the majority of TC judges in a 2021 ruling (and without directly asking the question) found that this principle did not pose an “insurmountable obstacle” to the decriminalization of euthanasia under certain circumstances, Barbosa de Melo argued that this had not happened. on this specific law”, which underwent several changes.
If the judges consider that the law complies with Article 24, according to which “human life is inviolable”, the Social Democratic deputies then ask for the analysis of another set of norms – about twenty, which, in their opinion, may conflict with 19 articles of the Constitution.
As an example, Barbosa de Melo pointed out the obligation for conscientious objectors to the practice of euthanasia to explain the reasons for their refusal or issues related to the Verification and Evaluation Committee of the process.
“It is not reasonable from a constitutional point of view that the committee organizing the process ultimately controls its own actions,” he said.
As another example, the deputy pointed to the deadline set by law within which the committee must make a final decision: “Isn’t five days too little for a matter so delicate?” he asks.
PSD deputies also question the constitutionality of euthanasia which covers situations of “serious and incurable diseases” (without any reference to its terminal or at least fatal nature) and “definitive injuries of extreme severity” (without any reference to the predictability of the disease). natural death as a result of the injury) and point out “several contradictions with the confirmation of the subsidiarity of euthanasia in relation to assisted suicide”.
Among the issues to be included in the TC’s analysis, the deputies also point out “the lack, at the current date, of an adequate and effective national network for palliative care”, considering that this “prevents the conditions for freely formulating a request for medical care”. assisted death,” or the prohibition of healthcare workers from coming into contact with patients, which indicates medically assisted death.
The non-mandatory intervention of a psychologist or psychiatrist in the process, the prohibition of access for close relatives to information that a request for euthanasia has been submitted or the ‘total administrative implementation of the decision to authorize medically assisted death’ in the Verification and Assessment, without possibility of judicial appeal, are other issues addressed in the petition to be submitted to Palácio Ratton.
“It is in the interests of society as a whole that these issues are resolved quickly. This group of delegates tried to be as comprehensive as possible, to do global work, and not just two or three media outbursts,” he explained.
Regarding the usual delay in successive inspection processes – sometimes years – the deputy sends this assessment to the TC, who will assess the request of “maximum priority and urgency” of the PSD deputies “depending on the importance of the case”.
“Even if the law ultimately goes into effect and remains as it is, we would all ultimately feel more comfortable if all the constitutionality of the issues were assessed one by one,” he said.
The registration process started this morning and already has more than a dozen signatures in the Social Democratic session, with 23 (one tenth of the deputies) being the minimum number for its formalization in the TC.
Source: DN
