End-of-life care: the Government challenges the Emilia-Romagna law as well: “There is no palliative care pathway”

The Government is also challenging the Emilia-Romagna end-of-life law before the Constitutional Court. This is not the first time this has happened, as it had already occurred with the laws of Tuscany and Sardinia, which had decided to legislate following the Constitutional Court’s landmark 2019 ruling that paved the way for assisted suicide provided certain conditions are met: applications may be made by people suffering from an irreversible condition causing physical or psychological suffering deemed intolerable, who are being kept alive by life-sustaining treatment and are capable of making free and informed decisions. The Government has taken issue with the failure to provide palliative care services in Emilia. In the past, however, the Constitutional Court has already ‘upheld’ the regional laws of Tuscany and Sardinia.

The Council of Ministers has resolved to bring an appeal before the Constitutional Court, pursuant to Article 127 of the Constitution, against Emilia-Romagna Regional Law No. 10 of 28 July 2026, entitled “Organisational arrangements for the implementation of Constitutional Court judgments Nos. 242/2019 and 135/2024 concerning medically assisted suicide”. “Despite the Region’s commitments to amend the legislation, the structure of the law does not adequately and effectively guarantee the prior provision of a personalised palliative care pathway and other support systems to prevent recourse to suicide”. This was highlighted by sources at Palazzo Chigi, explaining the reasons why the Council of Ministers decided yesterday to challenge the Emilia-Romagna law on end-of-life care. “In this regard,” the same sources added, “it is worth noting that, despite the significant funding allocated by this government – which has increased palliative care funding by 40 million euros, bringing the total to 140 million – many regions are still a long way from achieving the targets for the use, across their territories, of the resources allocated to them.”

The Government had previously challenged the laws of Tuscany and Sardinia as well, the only ones to have legislated alongside Emilia and Veneto, which joined the ranks of regions that had decided to regulate the procedural framework for accessing assisted suicide at the start of September, following the historic ruling by the Constitutional Court in 2019 that effectively recognised the right to end one’s life under certain conditions. In previous appeals, the Constitutional Court struck down certain provisions of the regional laws, whilst upholding the overall framework of the two sets of legislation.