Latest news with #SlovenianDemocraticParty
Al Jazeera
18-07-2025
- Health
- Al Jazeera
Slovenia's parliament votes to legalise assisted dying
Slovenia's parliament has passed a law giving terminally-ill adults the right to end their lives, after a majority of voters backed the move in a referendum. Lawmakers approved the bill on Friday, with 50 votes in favour, 34 against and three abstentions, meaning that assisted dying will be allowed in cases of unbearable suffering in which all treatment options have been exhausted. The right to assisted dying will not be available in the case of unbearable suffering resulting from mental illness, according to Slovenia's STA news agency. It is expected to come into force in the coming weeks. In a consultative referendum last year, 55 percent of Slovenians voted in favour of assisted suicide. Opponents of the law may try to gather enough support to force another referendum. The country's Commission for Medical Ethics said this week that it remained firm in its position that the bill carries high ethical risks despite several amendments during its passage through parliament. Tereza Novak, a lawmaker from the governing Freedom Movement, which had supported the bill, told parliament that the 'right [to assisted dying] does not represent a defeat for medicine'. 'It would be wrong for medicine to deprive people of their right to die if they want to and medicine cannot help them,' the liberal MP said. The conservative Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS) has denounced the bill, saying it 'opens the door to a culture of death, the loss of human dignity and the minimisation of the value of life, in particular of the most vulnerable'. The vote means the central European country will join several others that allow terminally ill people to receive medical help to end their lives, including Australia, Canada, the Netherlands and Belgium, as well as some states in the United States. Last month, the UK parliament voted to legalise assisted dying, although the bill must still clear the upper chamber of parliament.
Yahoo
18-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Court acquits Slovenia's ex-PM Jansa of corruption charges
CELJE, Slovenia (Reuters) - A Slovenian court on Friday brought the first-instance ruling to acquit Janez Jansa, a three-time prime minister and the key opposition figure in the Alpine country, and two alleged accomplices on charges of abuse of office and corruption. Jansa, the president of the largest opposition Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS), had dismissed the indictment as an attempt to remove him from politics ahead of a general election due in 2026. "Despite the fact that it was a clear and visible farce from the very beginning, the prosecutor requested two years in prison," Jansa told his cheering supporters after leaving the court. "This victory today is in quotation marks, our fight here is not over." Hundreds of his supporters gathered outside the court in the eastern town of Celje, waving Slovenian flags and carrying banners accusing the judiciary of being corrupt and biased. Jansa, a 66-year-old right-wing populist, was indicted on charges of abuse of office in a property sale in 2005, when he was serving his first term as prime minister. The case also involved the directors of two companies who were involved in a series of transactions related to the sale of a plot of land owned by Jansa in an alleged exchange for the purchase of an apartment for him in the capital Ljubljana. Jansa, who championed Slovenia's bid for independence from the then Yugoslavia in 1991 and served three times as Slovenia's prime minister, was sentenced to two years in jail in 2013 for bribery in a 2006 deal with Finnish defence group Patria while serving his second term as premier. He had denied all charges.
Reuters
18-04-2025
- Politics
- Reuters
Court acquits Slovenia's ex-PM Jansa of corruption charges
CELJE, Slovenia April 18 (Reuters) - A Slovenian court on Friday brought the first-instance ruling to acquit Janez Jansa, a three-time prime minister and the key opposition figure in the Alpine country, and two alleged accomplices on charges of abuse of office and corruption. Jansa, the president of the largest opposition Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS), had dismissed the indictment as an attempt to remove him from politics ahead of a general election due in 2026. "Despite the fact that it was a clear and visible farce from the very beginning, the prosecutor requested two years in prison," Jansa told his cheering supporters after leaving the court. "This victory today is in quotation marks, our fight here is not over." Hundreds of his supporters gathered outside the court in the eastern town of Celje, waving Slovenian flags and carrying banners accusing the judiciary of being corrupt and biased. Jansa, a 66-year-old right-wing populist, was indicted on charges of abuse of office in a property sale in 2005, when he was serving his first term as prime minister. The case also involved the directors of two companies who were involved in a series of transactions related to the sale of a plot of land owned by Jansa in an alleged exchange for the purchase of an apartment for him in the capital Ljubljana. Jansa, who championed Slovenia's bid for independence from the then Yugoslavia in 1991 and served three times as Slovenia's prime minister, was sentenced to two years in jail in 2013 for bribery in a 2006 deal with Finnish defence group Patria while serving his second term as premier. He had denied all charges.
