Will it be this one? The parliamentary committee on constitutional affairs has another vote scheduled for today on the specialism of the new euthanasia law. If all goes as the PS majority plans, the article could go to plenary on Friday for a final global vote. And then, once this part of the legislative process is resolved, the matter returns to the table of the President of the Republic, who has the three usual options at his disposal: political veto (return to parliament); constitutional veto (request for review by the Constitutional Court) or enactment.
If Marcelo comes with the law, it will mean the end of a legislative process that started almost six years ago, in February 2017, when the PAN introduced the first bill (after projects from the BE, PS and PEV). The only plea resulting from the merger of these four projects would be rejected in plenary at the end of May 2018 by the combination of the majority of votes from the PSD, all from the CDS-PP and all from the PCP. The favorable votes of PS, BE, PEV and PAN would be insufficient.
In the next legislature, supporters of the decriminalization of assisted death would file charges again, through projects by BE, PAN, PS, PEV and now also by IL. The single text that merges these articles would be approved this time, at the end of January 2021, by the combined votes of the PS, BE, PEV, PAN, Iniciativa Liberal and some PSD deputies (as well as the two dissident deputies of the PAN and Livre , Cristina Rodrigues and Joacine Katar Moreira).
The euthanasia legislative process began on February 21, 2017, when a PAN project was submitted. Law prepares to be voted in for the fourth time.
Law passed – but later the president of the republic would raise his pre-emptive inspection of the constitution. And the Court would agree with him, arguing that the concept of “definitive injury of extreme severity is, according to scientific consensus […] does not allow, even if, taking into account the normative context in which it is placed, we delimit with the necessary rigor the situations of life in which it can be applied”.
When asked to verify the law’s constitutionality, Marcelo had said the article resorted to “excessively indefinite concepts,” which contained a “strong dimension of subjectivity” — and, at least in part, the TC agreed with him . And so the law returned to parliament, to be cleared of the unconstitutionality found by the judges (in a vote of 7 to 5).
Then try again. PS, BE, PAN, PEV and IL again presented projects in November 2021, approved in one text, during a general final vote. And Marcelo vetoed again, but now only used the political veto, and sent the article back to Parliament, arguing that it suffered from “contradictions”: “The decree maintains in one line the requirement of ‘deadly disease'” for permission to anticipate death, which arose from the first version of the diploma But it expands, in another line, the “incurable disease”, even if not fatal, and, in yet another, the “serious illness”.
However, the legislature was interrupted. A new one started at the end of March. The legislative process has resumed. The delegates are preparing for a fourth final vote and it remains to be seen whether it will be this one.
Source: DN
