Madrid (EFE).- The Plenary of the Constitutional Court has fully endorsed the euthanasia law, one of the main star projects of the Government of Pedro Sánchez.
Legal sources have informed EFE that the guarantee court has rejected by a large majority Vox’s appeal with nine votes in favor and two against, from the conservative magistrates Enrique Arnaldo and Concepción Espejel.
In this way, the Plenary has declared the constitutionality of the norm as stated in the presentation of the progressive magistrate Ramón Sáez who fully endorsed the law without questioning any precept, noting that “it guarantees the right to self-determination of the person without leave life unprotected.”
The court has thus resolved Vox’s appeal, so now this doctrine will apply to that of the PP, which is later.
Right of self-determination of the person
Vox challenged the norm for infringing the right to life by stating that it is a fundamental right that the State must protect, even against the will of its owner, as is also its duty to offer palliative care to those who suffer, for what euthanasia cannot be regulated by the legislator.
But the court responds that “the Constitution offers coverage” to this subjective right, in the form of a person’s right to self-determination so that they can decide the manner and moment of their death, based on the fundamental right of physical and moral integrity and of the principles of human dignity and free development of personality.
The court argues that the right to life cannot be attributed an absolute value, “nor that it imposes on the State a duty of individual protection that implies a paradoxical duty to live, nor does it impede the constitutional recognition of the person’s ability to decide independently.” autonomy over their own death in situations of suffering caused by an incurable disease, medically proven, and that the patient experiences as unacceptable”.
“The absolutizing thesis of life -and its necessary corollary of an obligation to stay alive- is not compatible with the Constitution”, affirms the sentence, which adds that “the Constitution does not accept a conception of life disconnected from the will of the holder of the right and indifferent to his decisions on how and when to die”.
Along these lines, it stresses that “respect for the self-determination of one’s life must deal with situations of objective extreme suffering that the person considers intolerable, because they affect the right to personal integrity in connection with human dignity.”
Said context “demands from the public powers the duty to enable the necessary channels to enable the help of third parties”, because “the State cannot remain oblivious to this tragic situation, since this could lead the person to a degrading death, to a undignified and painful end of life”.
In this regard, it stresses that the regulation has established “a rigorous administrative procedure with solid guarantees of protection” and “precisely defines the assumptions of the so-called euthanasia context”, that is, that serious illness must always be presented as a somatic disease in its origin, although the constant and intolerable suffering may be of a psychological nature.
The TC responds to Vox that the law “provides for the availability of comprehensive palliative care”, although “palliative treatment is not an alternative in all situations of suffering” to which the rule refers.
For their part, the two magistrates who have formulated a dissenting opinion consider that the sentence “exceeds the scope and limits of the control that corresponds to the Court; by creating ‘ex novo’ a fundamental right of self-determination regarding one’s own death in a euthanasia context” and they maintain that the norm contains multiple inaccuracies.
Euthanasia, regulated by a norm that last Saturday turned two years old, can be requested by people who suffer from “a serious and incurable disease” or a “serious, chronic and disabling condition” that affects autonomy and that generates “physical suffering or constant and intolerable psychic”.
In its first year of application, from June 2021 to June 2022, 180 people exercised their right to euthanasia in Spain.
