ANSA [Agenzia Nazionale Stampa Associata, Rome] reported on 24 October: Italy’s Constitutional Court on Tuesday, 23 October 2018 opened a hearing on the case of right-to-die activist Marco Cappato, who is accused of assisting suicide for helping 40-year-old blind and tetraplegic Italian ex-DJ Fabiano Antoniani, better known as DJ Fabo, take his own life. The Court had to decide, at the request of the judges of Milan, whether the article 580 of the Penal Code, which punishes the instigation to suicide, is in conformity with the Constitution.
In today’s council, the Constitutional Court observed that the current regulatory framework concerning the end of life leaves, in certain situations, a citizen without adequate protection and is not balanced with other constitutionally relevant rights. In order to allow Parliament, in the first place, to intervene with appropriate legislation, the Court decided to postpone the discussion of the question of constitutionality re Article 580 of the Criminal Code during the hearing on September 24, 2019. The related decree will be filed shortly. The trial obviously remains suspended.
“It is a warning to Parliament setting a deadline”, and “civil disobedience has called the judge to intervene”: Filomena Gallo and Marco Cappato comment the decision of the Constitutional Court re the assisted suicide. Cappato recalled that he assisted “650 people finding the information to stop their suffering. This was the reason for our civil disobedience, today it is also the request of the Constitutional Court asking the Parliament to assume its responsibilities “.