Government to Appeal ECHR Reproductive Rights Ruling

Deadline for submission 28 November. Balduzzi: “Fixed point required”. Bishops’ conference: “Italian judges leapfrogged”. Fini opposes appeal

ROME – Italy’s technocratic government will decide at a meeting of the Council of Ministers but is already oriented towards an appeal against the chamber judgment of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). Meanwhile, the political debate on assisted fertilisation has been rekindled. Health minister Renato Balduzzi, speaking on Radio Vaticana on Wednesday, said he intended to “table the intention to appeal at the Council of Ministers”. The decision is widely expected and indeed almost a matter of course, since national governments generally defend domestic laws before European courts. According to Mr Balduzzi, there is also a need for a “fixed point”. So much for the procedural side of things but Mr Balduzzi is concerned that the ruling contains “passages that could lead to worrying interpretations”.

APPEAL – Italy has until 28 November to lodge a request for review with the ECHR’s Grand Chamber, which would trigger proceedings that will take months to conclude. Procedure demands that first five judges, who sit on average six times a year, should rule on the request for referral, after which the Grand Chamber will hand down a final judgment. Supporting the appeal, and a law that has already been thrown out by courts on seventeen occasions, are the Catholic lobby and the People of Freedom (PDL) whereas supporters of the 2004 referendum, many of them in the Democratic Party (PD), and the leader of the lower house Gianfranco Fini, hope that the government will drop the appeal. Angelo Bagnasco, chair of the Italian bishops’ conference, re-opened the debate on Wednesday morning: “The Italian courts were side-stepped. They were bypassed, leapfrogged. This is remarkable”. “The issue has to be thought through again at national level”, he said. What was needed was reconsideration “by both technocrats and experts”.

EUGENICS – In other words, at issue is jurisdiction and which court has competence, as the appeal of Rosetta Costa, 35, and Walter Pavan, 37, against the ban on embryo pre-implantation diagnosis (PID screening) has side-stepped the Italian justice system. But it is also a question of merit. Could the ECHR-endorsed desire to have a healthy child on the part of two healthy carriers of cystic fibrosis lead by extension to the liberalisation of eugenics? Vociferous warnings have come from Catholic circles. “A eugenic sentence on Law 40” was how the Catholic daily Avvenire described the ruling: “The arguments used by the judges deserve close, immediate attention because they reveal the cultural and legal drift on the beginning-of-life issue that has emerged in recent years”.

DAMAGES – Former junior health minister Eugenia Roccella (PDL), one of the most tenacious supporters of Law 40, stressed the financial aspect and the need “to avoid the risk of a series of lawsuits for compensation”. Meanwhile, the PD’s Anna Finocchiaro called on the government to reflect carefully before requesting referral since “the outcome could be far from favourable for Italy”. Her stance is shared by the leader of the Chamber of Deputies, Gianfranco Fini, and by Future and Freedom for Italy (FLI) lawyer Giulia Bongiorno, who said: “For the sake of women, the embryo and justice, I hope that the government will not protect a loathsome, wrong-headed law”.

English translation by Giles Watson

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