Exactly one month after approval in parliament, the CDS appeals to the ombudsman to stop the euthanasia law. The CDS-PP delegation led by the leader of the center, Nuno Melo, submitted the request this Monday and will be received on the 19th by the Ombudsman, Maria Lúcia Amaral, who entrusts her with the mission to, agreeing with the argument , to submit a request for a constitutionality review inspection.
Since the CDS does not have a parliamentary seat, this cannot be done motu proprio. For this reason, he submitted his arguments to the Ombudsman, confident that Maria Lúcia Amaral’s analysis would lead to the submission of a law to the Constitution that “affects fundamental rights”.
“It is a cause that CDS has always had and so it makes sense that we are at the forefront of this initiative to ask through an intermediary that the law be analyzed, even because there are aspects to this argument that the Constitutional Court has not yet had the opportunity to speak out, not even in response to the president’s doubts,” center leader Nuno Melo explained to DN. And underlines the recognition that Paulo Otero, who built the argument, deserves in this matter. “It was the obvious choice for the substantive justification of the request for unconstitutionality,” says Nuno Melo, emphasizing that the constitutionalist, due to his deep knowledge of the subject and of the Constitution, has produced a document that is not only political, ” It is an enduring legal piece of unassailable consistency”.
“If there is a case that deserves the intervention of the TC, it is this one that calls into question the sanctity of human life,” emphasized Nuno Melo, confident that the Ombudsman will accept the CDS’s request.
“In the name of defending the constitution and legality, especially in an area as sensitive as fundamental rights and within it the sanctity of human life,” the document, which DN had access to, defends “the declaration of unconstitutionality and illegality of Law No. 22/2023 of May 25″.
In the document handed over to the Ombudsman, the fundamental argument is the constitutional duty to protect life, with the text underlining that “the existence of crimes against life, the criminalization of all forms of murder and sedition, publicity or assisted suicide, a coercive” and that “it is not lawful for anyone to attack a human life, nor can the law permit anyone to cooperate in action against its sanctity”.
Paulo Otero also emphasizes that “the law cannot oblige health professionals, the SNS or private health agencies to perform functions that perform assisted suicide or euthanasia” and that the law “suffered from a radical substantive unconstitutionality” in this sense.
A 22-page argument raises other questions, such as the possibility of the patient forgoing psychological support and the doubt that arises about the ability of someone who is suffering “to manifest a perfect will, that is, to be legally free and clarified, to anticipate one’s own death”. And we caution against the vague nature of the phrases that guide euthanasia, which never materialize what constitutes “extremely intense suffering,” “permanent injury,” or “incurable disease.” A “conceptual omission” that violates “legal certainty and safety”.
The centrist arguments for asking the ombudsman to demand successive inspections of the law still find traces of unconstitutionality in the appointment of doctors and nurses to abide by the law. “If professionals enrolled in the Order of Physicians and the Order of Nurses are bound by deontological imperative to promote life, such organizational structures can never be required to appoint members to bodies that are part of a medically assisted death procedure.” A claim that the orders themselves have made.
The document also focuses on the lack of respect for the autonomous regions’ status of independence and the fact that it ignores the obligation to listen to them in the legislative process. “The constitutional principle of regional autonomy prevents the legislature of the Republic from treating the autonomous regions as if they were Minho, Algarve or Estremadura”, in terms of the organization of Health,” the argument reads. It still finds illegalities at this level, since Madeira and the Azores have not even been heard, despite the fact that consultations are mandatory.
The law goes against the right to life and the boundaries are diffuse
Paulo Otero’s argument for invoking the unconstitutionality of euthanasia emphasizes that an “unconstitutional body” cannot legislate by endangering rights expressed in the fundamental law or by “suspending or emptying them “where the law collides with the sanctity of human life, which “binds the state”. If there were a fundamental right to medically assisted death, it is suggested “restricting its exercise to cases of ‘serious and incurable illness’ or ‘definitive injury of extreme seriousness’ would be an unnecessary restriction of the supposed fundamental right”.
“The state cannot allow, without a situation of legitimate defense involving life, a human being to take someone’s life, even at his request, nor can the state allow health professionals who are deontologically committed to to guarantee life, to take enforcement action,” he said. refers, comparing this possibility to what would be permissible only by a totalitarian state.
And the fact that the disease does not have to be “fatal”, but only “severe and incurable” is a sign that “the slippery slope began even before the law came into effect”, without even assuring the primacy of palliative care, referred to as a patient’s choice, such as euthanasia. Which, he warns, creates a perversion: “By referring access to palliative care to the will of the patient, the state is not responsible for establishing a national system of palliative care units, as it is much less financially costly to to provide deadly medicine than to install it.” , equip and manage palliative care units for all patients with “great suffering”.
PSD delay annoys Enough
Even before the adoption of the Euthanasia Law, on May 12 – with votes for IL, BE, PAN, Livre and the majority of PS deputies and against the majority of Social Democratic MPs, Chega and PCP – Luís Montenegro, president of the PSD, admitted that he requested the successive inspection of the diploma to “guarantee the legal certainty of a very sensitive case”. The deadline for this does not start until July 10, but the PSD’s silence has already earned Chega criticism.
JN reported this Sunday that PSD deputies should meet this week “to analyze various opinions and contributions received and identify any weaknesses” of the law, to “make the request with the best possible justification.”
Source: DN
