The PSD draft resolution on the referendum on the decriminalization of euthanasia, unveiled this Monday, defends the plebiscite as it believes it is at stake “a matter of relevant national interest” that involves “a way of no return”.
PSD president Luís Montenegro announced Monday morning that the party would submit this request for a referendum, on which it wants to see a vote “immediately”, in the same week when the replacement text should also go to the polls based on legislative initiatives by PS, IL, BE and PAN on the same issue.
“This is a matter of relevant national interest which directly involves the community’s adoption of a path of no return and whose final decision, without jeopardizing the democratic freedom that guarantees discord, does not allow lukewarmness in the fulfillment of what the majority of the citizens want.”, justifies the party in the draft resolution sent to the media and handed over to parliament.
In the text, the PSD deputies propose that registered voters in the national territory be called upon to express their views in a referendum on an issue – also revealed by Luís Montenegro – which they believe legitimizes the legislative option in the replacement text and which currently under consideration, in the specialty, before the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, Rights, Freedoms and Guarantees.
“Agrees that medically assisted death is not punishable when practiced or assisted by health professionals by decision of the person, greater, whose will is current and repeated, grave, free and clear, in a situation of suffering of great intensity, with final injury of extreme severity or serious and incurable disease?” is the proposed question.
For the PSD, this plebiscite would give the deputies “a clear and unambiguous mandate from the citizens entitled to vote”, adding that “the winning party of the last parliamentary elections [o PS] has never even included this topic in its election manifesto, neither in the Legislative Assembly of 2022 nor in the previous one”.
In the explanatory statement, the PSD argues that “medically assisted death is a very divisive issue in Portuguese society” and that public debates have shown “that this issue is far from peaceful and consensual among Portuguese citizens”.
Acknowledging that the issue has been debated in Parliament since the XIII Legislature, the PSD believes that “one can hardly recognize the existence of an effective proportional correspondence between the vote expressed individually by each deputy, if consequence of their individual conscience and moral standards and ethical, and the collective will of the generality of the citizens entitled to vote”.
Today, the PSD chairman announced that “the tradition” of granting freedom to vote in diplomas intended to decriminalize euthanasia will remain on the bench, but there will be voting discipline regarding the “political issue” of the referendum.
However, Montenegro admitted that deputies who have already publicly taken a different position on the plebiscite in this legislature can ask for this voting discipline to be lifted.
When the subject was last in parliament on June 9, they were still President Rui Rio – although Montenegro had already won the direct elections, it would not take full office until early July – and parliamentary leader Paulo Mota Pinto.
On that occasion, the PSD Bank was given a vote, both on the four legislative initiatives to decriminalize euthanasia and on Chega’s draft resolution, which proposed a referendum asking: “Do you agree that the medically assisted death of a person, at your request, or assisted suicide, should remain a criminal offense?”
The project was rejected, but the overwhelming majority of the PSD bench (59 of the 70 Social Democratic deputies who took part in the vote) were in favor, in addition to Chega’s 12 deputies.
For PSD, nine deputies voted against (besides PS, IL, PCP, BE, PAN and Livre), according to the parliamentary page: Rui Cruz, Rui Vilar, André Coelho Lima, Carlos Eduardo Reis, Mónica Quintela, Paulo Mota Pinto (then parliamentary leader and whose mandate has been suspended), Sofia Matos, Artur Soveral Andrade and Hugo Carvalho.
Social Democratic deputies Bruno Coimbra and Joana Barata Lopes abstained.
The issue of the euthanasia referendum led to controversy under Rui Rio’s leadership, both within the bench and with the party’s Jurisdiction Council, especially when freedom to vote was granted for a CDS referendum project in 2020, after the PSD Congress passed a thematic motion had approved in favor of the plebiscite that year.
Former PSD leader Pedro Passos Coelho and former President of the Republic Cavaco Silva were among the most critical voices in the party against the possibility of decriminalizing euthanasia.
Constitutionally, it is for the Assembly of the Republic to vote and decide on a proposal for a referendum, which may arise at the initiative of deputies, parliamentary groups, the government or groups of citizens entitled to vote.
If approved, the president of the republic must submit the proposal for a referendum for preventive inspection to the Constitutional Court, with the head of state responsible for the final decision on whether or not to convene the plebiscite.
Source: DN
