At the request of Chega, the parliamentary committee on constitutional affairs, rights, freedoms and guarantees has postponed the adoption of the final wording of the new decree on the decriminalization of medically assisted death.
The final formulation of the text is scheduled for today’s meeting of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, Rights, Freedoms and Guarantees.
Before the point began to be discussed, Chega’s parliamentary leader asked for a postponement.
“The delay is potestative, so it will be,” said deputy Cláudia Santos (PS), vice-president of the commission, who led the works.
Defining the final wording of the new decree on the decriminalization of medically assisted death should be on the agenda of the next committee meeting.
Talking to Lusa, the parliamentary leader of Chega said that the adoption of the final wording of the diploma on medically assisted death “was introduced only yesterday [terça-feira] at the end of the afternoon in the agenda of today’s committee”.
“We didn’t have time to analyze the text,” deputy Pedro Pinto justified.
On March 31, the Assembly of the Republic approved the new decree on death with medical assistance with the favorable votes of the PS, IL, BE, the two only deputies from Livre and PAN and six deputies from the PSD.
The majority of the PSD bank (64 deputies) voted against, together with five deputies from the PS and the parliamentary groups of Chega and PCP.
There were also two abstentions, one from the PS and one from the PSD, according to the voting results on the parliament’s website.
This review came after the Constitutional Court (TC) declared some norms unconstitutional, forcing the President of the Republic to veto the decree passed by parliament late last year.
This was the fourth time that the Assembly of the Republic approved a diploma on medically assisted death, a subject that has already been discontinued twice due to unconstitutionality discovered by the TC and once by a political veto by the President of the Republic.
According to the rules of the Assembly of the Republic, when the final formulation of the text is completed, the document will be published in the Official Journal of the Assembly of the Republic.
If there are complaints about inaccuracies, they can be submitted by any deputy “until the third working day after the date of publication in the Agenda of the final draft text”.
The president of the Assembly of the Republic decides on the complaints within 24 hours, the text continues, “the complaining deputies may appeal to the plenary or to the standing committee until the meeting immediately after the announcement of the decision”.
“The text on which no complaints have been received or the text reached after the complaints submitted have been decided” is considered final and after all this process, the parliamentary decree goes to the President of the Republic, who can issue, veto or ask the Constitutional Court for its preventive inspection.
The new decree stipulates that medically assisted death can only take place through euthanasia if assisted suicide is impossible due to the patient’s physical incapacity.
This is one of the amendments proposed by PS, IL, BE and PAN to the latest decree approved by parliament and finally rejected by the Constitutional Court at the end of January.
Source: DN
