André Ventura said that he will ask the President of the Republic for an audience, in which he will demand "specifically the calling of a referendum, in harmony with the legislation in force here in the Assembly of the Republic on the subject of euthanasia", which he considered "the only way to solve this problem in a peaceful and consensual way".

The leader of Chega was speaking to journalists in the Assembly of the Republic, after the Constitutional Court (TC) declared unconstitutional some of the norms of the decree that regulates medically assisted death, in response to the request for preventive inspection by the President of the Republic.

Following this decision, the President of the Republic vetoed this parliamentary decree as unconstitutional, as required by the Constitution, and the diploma will now be returned to the Assembly of the Republic.

André Ventura defended that "this process can only be resolved with a referendum", maintaining that "an issue of this importance, twice declared unconstitutional by the TC, can only be resolved with the direct participation of Portuguese citizens".

The president of Chega highlighted "the advantages" of a referendum, considering that "the issue will be validated by the Constitutional Court" and that there will be a "social debate about this".

"It also has the advantage that, regardless of majorities and in a legislature that no one believes will come to an end, we don't have to have the right to reverse this law immediately after having a majority in parliament", he added.

The Constitutional Court considered that “an intolerable lack of definition as to the exact scope of application” of the decree on medically assisted death had been created, noting that the parliament went “further”, changing “in essential aspects” the previous diploma.

This was the third decree approved by parliament to decriminalise medically assisted death in a period of about two years.

The first was also declared unconstitutional by the TC, in March 2021, following a request for preventive inspection by the President of the Republic, due to insufficient normative densification.

In November of the same year, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa used the political veto in relation to the second parliamentary decree on this matter, as it contained contradictory expressions.


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