Follow RT on The constitutional court of Portugal has turned down a bill approved by parliament earlier this year to decriminalize the euthanasia of terminally-ill patients, saying that it threatened the principle of inviolability of life .
Seven out of the top court s panel of 12 judges, including the head of the Constitutional Court Joao Caupers, voted against approving the legislation on Monday.
Caupers pointed out that the conditions under which medically-assisted death stops being a punishable offense must be clear, precise, predictable and controllable – a bar the court said the legislation had failed to reach.
In late January, the Portuguese parliament passed a bill to allow people over 18 to ask for assistance in dying if they were terminally-ill and suffered from