The Regional Council of Sardinia has approved a law that regulates assisted suicide. The Region then established the necessary passages to obtain the lethal drug from self -administering, admitted to respect health conditions dictated by the judgment of the Constitutional Court on the case of DJ Fabo.
The Sardinian law is based on the free proposal immediately, presented by the Luca Coscioni association, by Marco Cappato. Sardinia is the second region, after Tuscany, to have a similar law. However, the government has already resorted to the Constitutional Court against the latter rule, claiming that a region cannot legislate on end of life.
The law of Sardinia on assisted suicide
The law on the end of life was approved in the Regional Council on Wednesday 17 September, with a majority that also involved part of the opposition to the center -left coalition that guides the Region. The favorable votes were 32, those against 19, with only one abstention.
The text of the law has not yet been made public, but is based on a known proposal, the one developed by the Luca Coscioni association of Marco Cappato, with the countryside free immediately. Using the sentence of the Constitutional Court on the case of DJ Fabo, this law establishes the times and methods of the passages required to obtain the lethal drug from self -administer to proceed from the ASL to proceed with the medically assisted suicide.
The self -administration takes place with the help of doctors and nurses who, has established the Cappato sentence, are not punishable for the crime of help to suicide. The free law proposal immediately provides for:
- the establishment of a commission that evaluates the legitimacy of the applications in reasonable times;
- The obligation for the ASL to quickly provide the drug and tools for self -administration.
Throughout Italy it is already possible, in theory, access assisted suicide without legal consequences. However, no government, from 2019, has ever developed a law that regulated the procedure. Consequently, in almost all regions with the exception of Sardinia and Tuscany, accessing this right is in fact impossible.
The requirements and the question of “vital support”
The law does not instead establish what are the requirements that a person must comply with access to medically assisted suicide. In fact, this decision has already been taken by the Constitutional Court in the 2019 sentence. The requirements must all exist at the same time, and are:
- have the ability to make free and aware decisions;
- have an irreversible pathology;
- suffer intolerable physical suffering or psychological suffering;
- be kept alive by vital support treatments.
In the last requirement, in the years elapsed by the sentence, an interpretative question was born. The Constitutional Court has not specified, not being its role, what is meant by “vital support treatments”. Even a simple urinary catheter, cited as an example by the same court, could be considered within this definition.
The government’s appeal against the law of Tuscany
A law similar to that of Sardinia has already existed in Tuscany since February 2025. It is also based on the proposal free immediately and has already been used by two people. The government, however, resorted to the Constitutional Court against this same law. The executive cannot argue that the rule violates a national law or the Constitution, given that it is based on a sentence of the Constitutional Court. Consequently, the government’s argument is that the regions cannot legislate in the matter of end of life.
The regions in Italy have a good degree of autonomy as regards health management. Although the law of Tuscany was repealed by the Constitutional Court, moreover, it is not sure that that of Sardinia would be abolished immediately. Sardinia is a region with a special statute, which enjoys greater autonomies than the others. The government’s argument would therefore be weaker in this case.
