Italy’s highest court has blocked a referendum on the issue of assisted suicide.

The constitutional court said it “deemed the referendum question inadmissible,” because if the referendum were to repeal the existing criminal law on assisted suicide, “the constitutionally necessary minimum protection of human life, in general, and with particular reference to weak and vulnerable persons, would not be preserved.”

Welcoming the ruling, the country’s Catholic bishops said it was “a very specific invitation to never marginalise the commitment of society, as a whole, to offer the support necessary to overcome or alleviate the situation of suffering or distress.”

The court said the proposed referendum did not give adequate protection to the weak and vulnerable.