The Government challenges the Tuscan law on end-of-life, but a national law is still missing

The government, during the Council of Ministers this afternoon at Palazzo Chigi, has decided to challenge the Tuscany Region law on end-of-life. This was learned at the end of the Council of Ministers meeting.

With the 2019 ruling, later confirmed with another ruling in 2024, the Constitutional Court has effectively granted regions the possibility of regulating the use of assisted suicide, within the limits of what is provided for by the ruling itself and subject to the approval of a state law, a law that is still missing.

There was time until May 17 to challenge the Tuscan regional law on end-of-life. The Emilia Romagna resolutions, on the same topic, had already been suspended. After weeks of stalemate, work is back on a new basic text for a national law.

Two months ago, an initial opening in the Senate, with two hypotheses of definition, on the end of life and on the inviolability of the right to life. On Wednesday, Democratic Senator Alfredo Bazoli returned to ask in the Chamber for the scheduling of the measure. In the coming weeks, a new basic text will be presented, which will be the starting point for the discussion between the groups and for new amendments. "Faced with the regional laws that are looming and the ruling of the TAR, Parliament needs to intervene with a certain urgency", said one of the speakers from Forza Italia, Pierantonio Zanettin, of the idea that "the time is ripe to start a process".

According to the regional law, “ people who meet the requirements indicated in the Constitutional Court rulings 242/2019 and 135/2024 can access the procedures relating to medically assisted suicide” . According to the two rulings of the Constitutional Court, assisted suicide is possible when the pathology is irreversible, the person is experiencing physical or psychological suffering that he or she considers intolerable, there is a situation of dependence on life-sustaining treatments and the patient has the capacity to make free and informed decisions.

The law then establishes that within 15 days of its entry into force, local health authorities "establish a permanent multidisciplinary commission to verify the existence of the requirements". The commission, identified on a voluntary basis, will be made up of a palliative doctor, i.e. one specialized in palliative care, a psychiatrist and an anesthetist, a psychologist, a medical examiner and a nurse, in addition to a doctor specialized in the pathology from which the person requesting medically assisted suicide is affected.

To access the practice, the interested person must submit an application to the local health authority to verify the requirements, accompanied by the health documentation. The local health authority then forwards the application to the Commission and the Committee for Clinical Ethics. The procedure for verifying the requirements must be concluded within twenty days of the submission of the application. The Commission then verifies that the patient has received adequate information regarding the possibility of accessing a palliative care pathway and, if the applicant confirms his intention, the Commission examines the documentation. After asking the Committee for an opinion on the ethical aspects of the case in question, it draws up the final report and the health authority communicates the results of the verification to the interested person.