Tuscany (2025-)

Article 580 of the Criminal Code of Italy prohibits inciting, reinforcing or facilitating in any way a person’s suicide.

In its decision no 242 of 2019 the Constitutional Court of Italy considered the constitutionality of  Article 580 and concluded, firstly, that “criminalisation of assisting suicide is not, in itself, contrary to the Constitution but is justified by the need to protect the right to life, especially of the weakest and most vulnerable persons, which the system seeks to protect by avoiding external interference in an extreme and irreparable choice, such as suicide.”

However, the Court “identified a limited area in which such criminalisation is not compliant with the Constitution, namely when help is given to a person being kept alive by life-support treatments such as hydration and artificial nutrition and who suffers from an incurable illness that is a source of intolerable physical or psychological suffering but remains wholly capable of making free and informed decisions.”

The Court ruled, somewhat confusedly, that, in the absence of any positive law, such “help” be given in accordance with the procedures provided for in Articles 1 and 2 of the Law on Advanced Medical Directives which deal with the waiver of life-preservation treatments and the guaranteed provision of suitable pain management and palliative care. However, the “help” in this case includes the provision of a lethal substance to be self-administered to end life (suicide).

In a subsequent decision no 279 of 2024,the Constitutional Court refused to expand its exception to Article 580 to cover a case involving multiple sclerosis in which the person was not dependent on any life-support treatment. The Court explicitly rejected the broader approach to a so-called right to assistance in suicide as reflected in the decisions of constitutional courts in Germany, Austria, Spain, Colombia, Canada and Ecuador.

Tuscan law

On 14 March 2025, legislation came into effect I  the Tuscan Region to implement the processes envisioned by the Constitutional Court in its decision no. 242 of 2029, including providing access to “self‐ administration of the drug that can guarantee a rapid, painless and dignified death”.

In May 2025 the national government announced it was challenging the constitutionality of the regional law.

On 11 June 2025, a 60 year old man with Parkinson’s disease who was dependent on a percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy tube for nutrition, was approved under the Tuscan law and died after self-administering a lethal substance through an infusion pump.

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