The CDS-PP this Monday enthusiastically welcomed the Constitutional Court’s (CC) decision to “repeal” some of the diploma’s provisions decriminalizing physician-assisted death, given that the text approved by Parliament “permits killing on demand.”
In a statement signed by President Nuno Melo, deputies Telmo Correia and Paulo Nunsio, and press secretary Isabel Galris Neto, the Christian Democrats believe the TC’s decision “reaffirms respect for the Constitution and human rights.”
CDS is against euthanasia. For us, suffering unaccompanied and untreated will never be an option (…) This failed version of the law had fuzzy contours, it greatly expanded the scope of euthanasia, a law that goes beyond exceptional and incurable cases – as they wanted us to think seven years ago,” the party said.
Centrist leaders also classify the terms proposed in the diploma as “unrealistic and unsafe” and believe that the implementation of the law “was not enforced.”
“A law that made killing on request possible, that allowed people who are not sick and not at the end of their lives to shorten it by a few years,” the CDS-PP accused.
In the communiqué, the party states that “the priority is not to make death on demand possible, but to invest in trained teams, in properly qualified medical professionals, to actively intervene in suffering and offer properly accompanied lives to our fellow citizens.” ”, emphasizing that “thousands of frail and vulnerable patients do not have access to the palliative care they need.”
The Constitutional Court (CC) declared unconstitutional certain provisions of the decree governing euthanasia in response to a request from the President of the Republic for a preventive review by a decision taken by a majority of seven judges to six.
This is the second time that the Constitutional Court has rejected a death order with the help of a doctor.
The TC justified the decision by saying that it created “unacceptable uncertainty as to the exact scope” of the physician-assisted death decree, noting that parliament had gone “further” by changing “substantial aspects” of the previous diploma.
The judges concluded that by characterizing the type of suffering according to three characteristics (physical, psychological and spiritual) connected by the conjunction “and”, the legislator “raised doubt, which he has to clarify, that the requirement is cumulative (physical suffering, greater psychological suffering, greater spiritual suffering) or alternative (physical, psychological and spiritual suffering).
Following the decision of the TC, the President of the Republic vetoed as unconstitutional a parliamentary decree decriminalizing the expectation of death as a result of medical care, as required by the Constitution.
The pending decree, which regulates the conditions under which the death penalty by medical means is no longer punishable, amending the Penal Code, was approved in Parliament by a final universal vote on December 9, with a majority vote of the judges PS, Iniciativa Liberal and BE, six MPs from PSD and the only MPs from PAN and Livre.
58 SDP deputies, Chega and PKP benches and six PS deputies voted against. Three MPs from the PSD and one MP from the PS abstained.
Author: Portuguese
Source: CM Jornal
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