Portugal’s Constitutional Court has rejected former minister/ former banker Armando Vara’s challenge to the decision to reverse the pardon he was granted during the pandemic, which means he should be returning to jail to serve two years, five months and 27 more days behind bars.
Mr Vara’s predicament is in stark contrast to former prime minister José Sócrates who is only now being tried in a court of law over the long-running investigation known as Operation Marquês.
The decision by the Constitutional Court “rejects the appeal of the defence of the former minister of José Sócrates’ government and ex-board director of state-owned bank Caixa Geral de Depósitos”, explains Lusa, recalling that Vara received convictions in both the Face Oculta and Operação Marquês cases.
His sentence of five and a half years, in legal cumulation – and without the right to apply the two-year pardon granted in the pandemic – was confirmed in May by the Supreme Court of Justice.
According to the court, Vara was wrong to claim that the partial pardon under the Covid emergency measures (which took two years off his five-year prison sentence) should be maintained in the legal cumulation that was decided ‘in the meantime’ (see below) – which established a single sentence of five years and six months in prison.
Vara’s defence claimed that with the application of the partial pardon, he had only six months of prison time left to serve, asking for this to be done under house arrest, but by rejecting the right to benefit from this pardon, the Supreme Court ruling means that Vara faces another two years, five months and 27 days in prison.
“The legal grounds include a conviction for money laundering, which, under the law on partial pardons during the pandemic, excludes Armando Vara from the possibility of benefiting from this pardon”, explains Lusa.
Fulfillment of the remaining prison time now depends on this final judgement of the Constitutional Court, and the case, being sent back to the court of origin. Once that has happened, there appear to be no alternatives for Mr Vara but to brace himself and return to jail.
There is a chink of light, however. Lusa’s report today suggests that after he re-enters the prison system, the Court of Execution of Sentences can decide to grant conditional release “or change the conditions of imprisonment, allowing, for example, house arrest or other forms of sentence fulfilment”.
The Constitutional Court decision also obliges Armando Vara to pay court costs totalling €1,530.
*In May 2024, the Supreme Court of Justice increased former minister Armando Vara’s prison sentence to five years and six months, combining the sentences handed down in the Face Oculta and Operação Marquês cases.
Armando Vara was sentenced to five years in prison as part of the Face Oculta case for three offences of influence peddling (and was later released from Évora Prison, in October 2021, after serving around three years due to the application of exceptional measures related to the Covid-19 pandemic).
Previously, in July 2021, the court sentenced him to two years in prison for money laundering in the Operação Marquês case, which has only now managed to tackle the principal defendant in the investigation, José Sócrates, whose defence is trying the patience of the lead judge to the point that she has been reported as having shouted in the courtroom yesterday: “The game-playing is over! It is over!”
Source: LUSA
