Medically assisted suicide in Italy: the recent judgment of the Constitutional Court

Abstract

Medically assisted suicide is considered among the most contro-versial of the current bioethical debate in our Country. In the Italian legal system, we are lacking specific discipline of this practice, as it is covered by the general legal forms applicable to crimes against life. The Constitutional Court, with Decision No. 242/2019, declared the illegitimacy of Art. 580 of the Criminal Code (instigation to suicide), in the part not excluding the punishment of those who facilitates the execution of the intention to commit suicide, independently and freely formed, by a person kept alive by life support and suffering an irreversible disease, source of physical or psychological suffering that the person deems intolerable, but who is fully capable of making free and conscious decisions. The Constitutional Court found that the current regulatory fra-mework concerning the end of life leaves certain situations constitutio-nally worthy of protection and to be balanced with other constitutionally relevant assets without adequate protection. The Court has identified the conditions that can justify third-party assistance in ending the life of a sick person. The judges envisaged the possibility of including this discipline under Law No. 219/2017, but this hypothesis is not shared by the Italian National Bioethics Committee.

Keywords: Assisted suicide; Constitutional Court; bioethics; end of life.