Seven years and 22 vetoes after parliamentary decrees, the decriminalization of medically assisted death will result in an unprecedented moment between the majority in the Assembly of the Republic and Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa. With the PS confirming that the euthanasia text will be voted on unchanged, the president of the republic is obliged to issue the diploma – it will be the first time this has happened since Marcelo arrived in Belém in 2016.
Eurico Brilhante Dias, parliamentary leader of the PS, confirmed yesterday that the socialist parliamentary bench “proceeds to the confirmation of the diploma” – “Now is the time to close a mature debate that is coming to an end with a parliamentary majority that far exceeds the PS”. In addition to the Socialists, all the other proposing parties – Bloco de Esquerda, Iniciativa Liberal and PAN – have already shown their willingness to reaffirm the decree rejected by the President of the Republic last Wednesday. In what was already the fourth clue in the decriminalization of medically assisted death (with two political vetoes and two unconstitutional declarations by the Constitutional Court), Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa underlines the substantial changes made to the text – which began to give precedence to assisted death suicide over euthanasia -, asking delegates to clarify “who defines the patient’s physical inability to self-administer lethal drugs” and “who should ensure medical supervision during the act of medically assisted death”. A request that met with no response from the delegates. “This time it seems very clear that the President of the Republic knows there is no problem with constitutionality and opted for a political veto with a rather atypical content, because it makes legislative recommendations. But in fact, the parliament is the legislative body,” emphasized Socialist deputy Isabel Moreira, one of the main faces of this diploma.
PS and Belém devalue
Since this is the first time that the PS is preparing to impose a law in Belém during Marcelo’s consulate (she even did it with Cavaco, then with the support of BE and PCP), both sides have already downplayed. The first to do so was the President of the Republic himself, who on Wednesday already admitted the scenario of a reconfirmation that will oblige him to declare it, even without the precision proposed to the deputies. “There’s no drama, it’s life,” Marcelo replied. Catholic and opposed to the decriminalization of medically assisted death, the president of the republic finally has a way of enacting the law – which would be practically inevitable in the long run – without being associated with it. Yesterday, Eurico Brilhante Dias rejected any scenario of institutional confrontation, underlining what he says “close institutional cooperation”.
Law in force in the last quarter of 2023
The revision of the diploma will be requested at the next leadership conference, on April 26. According to the Rules of Procedure of the Assembly of the Republic, “in case of exercise of the right of veto by the President of the Republic, the revaluation of the diploma will take place from the fifteenth day after receipt of the reasoned message”, so the schedule can be be done two weeks later. As can be expected, euthanasia will return to Belém in May and Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa then has eight days to issue. Once published in Diary of the Republic, the government then has 90 days to pass the legislative provision, which will have to define the model of the special clinical record (SCR) that will record all the steps of each process, from the initial request to the death certificate. The Executive will also need to define the final report template, a document that will be sent to the Committee for Verification and Evaluation of Clinical Procedures for Medically Assisted Death (CVA) and to the General Inspectorate of Health Activities. Only then, “30 days after the publication of the respective regulations”, will the law enter into forcetherefore this should not be expected until the end of the year, never before the last quarter.
Source: DN
