This Wednesday, the SDP president defended that after a presidential veto, there is still time to put a “combined legislative text to a referendum” on euthanasia, criticizing what he called the “unbridled haste” of the bill’s supporters.
At the end of a visit to the Beatriz Angelo hospital in Loures, journalists asked Luis Montenegro about the decision taken this Wednesday by the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Souza, to veto the fourth parliamentary diploma decriminalizing medically assisted death, asking Parliament to clarify two points.
The SDP chairman stressed that, in addition to asking the legislator for additional clarifications, the head of state left “two very important considerations.”
“Firstly, he recalls that this is a legislative evolution of great sensitivity, and secondly, he wrote in a message that after the previous decision of the Constitutional Court, there were very short debates in parliament,” he stressed.
For the President of the SDP, the driving forces behind this legislative process “signify an unbridled desire to achieve a legislative solution without the necessary security and legal certainty.”
“Our position, and mine in particular, remains to consolidate the text that the Portuguese can bring to public discussion,” he said, believing that holding a referendum “would be an opportunity to have” a broad debate, which he considers the President’s request.
Clarifying that the topic of euthanasia was not part of his Tuesday audience with Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, Luis Montenegro pledged to maintain the tradition of allowing PSD deputies a voice and took the opportunity to respond to those who believed that he proposed another referendum in the afternoon. a few days before parliament votes on the diploma for the last time.
“There is still time to solidify the legislative text, which will then be put to a referendum for the vote of the citizens regardless of the result,” he said, recalling that the popular poll must have a specific question and that it can only focus on “legislative decision, enshrined in parliament ”, which, in his opinion, does not yet exist.
Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa argued that “because of this delicacy and in view of the very brief parliamentary debate on the last two amendments, it seems reasonable to retain all conceptual dilutions, also because of the step taken and its largely original nature in comparative law” .
The Fourth Law of Parliament on Medically Assisted Death was approved in a final global vote on March 31st and, after correcting the final wording, published in Diário da República last Thursday, April 13th.