[The Constitutional Court and new scenarios of biomedicine. (Constitutional reflections on the decision of the Constitutional Tribunal 116/1999, June 17)].

The recent ruling by the Constitutional Court (116/1999, 17 June) ended the process which had been initiated by the challenge filed by 63 conservative MPs against Law 35/1988, 22 November, on the Law on Human Assisted Reproduction Techniques. In our opinion, this ruling helps define the scope of the constitutional provisions used by the appellants in their challenge, provisions which had already been interpreted in lower rulings. The considerations given in this article are designed to establish the terms and framework which lawmakers and law experts should bear in mind when they prepare future, as will necessarily be the case. In view of some of the arguments used in the ruling, we believe it is appropriate to draw attention to some of the most salient constitutional aspects, such as the scope of the Constitutional Court's role as the ultimate judge of constitutionality, and the exact nature of the constitutional notion of fundamental right which, although complicated at times, is nonetheless a precise and accurate legal concept.