President Marcelo has refused to promulgate parliament’s second attempt at a national law decriminalising assisted death. The law was approved by parliament last month (click here), after being rejected by the Constitutional Court (click here). This time round, president Marcelo said he felt the law still retained ‘doubts over concepts’: for example, one article requires ‘incurable or fatal disease’ to be a requirement for medically assisted death; another describes “serious and incurable disease” and a third refers to “serious” or “incurable” disease, which the president considered “no longer alternative but cumulative”. Despite MPs’ bewilderment, the law will be reappraised in parliament after January’s legislative elections.
