Assisted suicide, government appeal to the TAR against the Emilia Romagna resolutions: “They must be annulled”

On 12 April the presidency of the cabinet and the Ministry of Health have filed an appeal with the Emilia-Romagna Regional Administrative Court against the Region, and in particular against the Health of the Person health management, to request the annulment of the Council resolutions which implemented medically assisted suicide in Emilia-Romagna.

End of life, the government’s appeal

Valentina Castaldini, regional councilor of Forza Italia, made this known. The reasons, she explains, highlight “the body’s lack of power” on the topic “and the contradictory and illogical nature of the reasons introduced in the guidelines sent to the healthcare companies”.

Second appeal

With the one filed by the Ministry of Health and the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, there are two appeals to the TAR against the resolutions on the end of life in Emilia-Romagna. The regional councilor of Forza Italia, Valentina Castaldini, had filed a similar appeal in March, together with a group of associations. «I am very happy that the government, with this formal act, confirms and strengthens the work of these months», states Castaldini, «the executive considered that the path of the appeal that I opened was the correct one and that all the details were there to cancel the resolutions, as I have always supported.”

In February, Stefano Bonaccini’s regional council had approved two resolutions for access to medically assisted suicide, with the aim, the Region explained, of filling Parliament’s gap in the matter and putting healthcare companies in a position to guarantee the right of the sick sanctioned by the ruling of the Constitutional Court (n.242/2019).

Guidelines have been sent to healthcare companies that establish end-of-life processes and timing, a maximum of 42 days from the patient’s request to the possible execution of a pharmacological procedure. Among the contested elements is also the establishment of Corec, the Regional Committee for Clinical Ethics, which is called upon to express an opinion – even if non-binding – on patients’ requests.