Abstract

This essay aims at discussing some profiles of political discretionality left by the Constitutional Court open in its decision n. 242/2019, concerning the right to access medically assisted suicide procedures for “diseased people suffering from an irreversible pathology which causes them absolutely unbearable physical or psychological sufferance”. One year after the ordinance n. 207/2018 invited (although unsuccessfully) the Parliament to legislate upon, the Court definitively addresses the problem declaring art. 580 of the criminal code unconstitutional in that it permits incrimination of people who assisted the requesting patients to commit suicide, when these were capable of self-determination and autonomously reached that decision. The reflections carried out in this essay have the scope to demonstrate that the decision, far from binding the legislator to its outcome, draws the “right to die with dignity” in its essential frame, leaving for the rest the legislature free to broaden the range of people who are entitled to it

Sommario

1. Il caso e le questioni dedotte. – 2. L’aiuto medico a morire: un nuovo “diritto di prestazione”? – 3. Le condizioni per accedere al suicidio assistito, tra vincolo al decisum e discrezionalità del legislatore. – 3.1 La “patologia irreversibile fonte di sofferenze fisiche o psicologiche”. – 3.2 I “trattamenti di sostegno vitale”. – 3.3 La “capacità di prendere decisioni libere e consapevoli”. – 4. Conclusioni e prospettive.

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