The President of the Assembly of the Republic decided this Wednesday not to accept the PSD initiative for a referendum on the decriminalization of euthanasia, as “the circumstances have not changed” regarding a previous initiative already submitted on the same issue.
“This decision was conveyed by the President of the Assembly of the Republic after listening to the leaders’ conference,” PS MP Palmira Maciel said.
The Leadership Conference has met extraordinary to discuss a PSD draft resolution that proposes a referendum on the decriminalization of euthanasia.
When asked about the reason for the unacceptability of the proposal, the deputy, who handed over the results of the meeting this Wednesday, replied: “There are no changes in the circumstances regarding other initiatives that have already been discussed in the Assembly.”
Immediately after the announcement of the decision of the inadmissibility of the PSD by the vice-president of the bench, Paulo Cardoso, announced in the plenary session that the party intended to appeal against the same.
“We saw at the leadership conference that PS is following Chega at the moment,” he criticized, defending that the PSD initiative “is a new project and with a different issue.”
However, this appeal has not yet been put to the vote, and the President of the Assembly of the Republic, Augusto Santos Silva, asked the PSD parliamentary group to submit it in writing, after having been officially informed of its decision of inadmissibility, and that it would have to go through a parliamentary committee. before returning to the plenary session.
On Monday, SDP chairman Luis Montenegro announced that the Social Democratic parliamentary group would present a draft referendum on the decriminalization of euthanasia, and on the same day the diploma was submitted to parliament.
On Tuesday, Chega leader Andre Ventura said the proposal was unconstitutional, saying the basic law forbids the resubmission of a finally rejected referendum draft in the same legislative session.
Chega presented a draft resolution on holding a referendum on euthanasia, which was rejected on June 9, that is, still in the current legislative session.
On the same day, the party sent a request to the President of the Assembly of the Republic, in which it asked Augusto Santos Silva that “in strict accordance with the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic and the Rules of Procedure of the Assembly of the Republic, the draft resolution should not be adopted” from psd.
Chairman of the parliamentary group Chegi, who signed the initiative, defends that “there seems to be no doubt” that the draft resolution presented by the PSD “should not be adopted under pain of serious violation of the constitutional and legal prescriptions in this matter, opening if the green light was given for discussion in the Assembly of the Republic, a precedent for the total invalidity of paragraph 4 of Article 167 of the Constitution.”
This clause of the Basic Law states that “drafts and proposals for laws and referendums which have been finally rejected may not be renewed in the same legislative session, except for new elections to the Assembly of the Republic.”
Late this Wednesday morning, a replacement text based on the initiatives of PS, BE, IL and PAN to decriminalize medically assisted death was approved by specialty, with Chega and PCP voting against and PSD abstaining.
The vote on the text in the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, Rights, Freedoms and Guarantees was held in favor of PS, IL and BE, and a plenary session is due on Friday for a final global vote.
The PSD draft, which the party intended to vote for on Friday, even before the replacement text, intended to put the following question to a referendum: “Do you agree that violent death is not punishable when it is practiced or carried out with the help of medical professionals? health by decision of an older person, whose will is relevant and repeated, serious, free and enlightened, in a situation of great suffering, with a final injury of extreme severity or a serious and incurable disease?”, the question is put in the draft PSD.
Chega’s diploma, rejected in June, included the following question: “Do you agree that the death of a person with medical assistance at his request or assisted suicide should continue to be punishable under criminal law?”
Author: Portuguese
Source: CM Jornal
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