Portugal’s Constitutional Court – the group of 13 judges that can play havoc with government policies – has just drawn a very important line in the sand as President Seguro considers two ‘new’ diplomas relating to the nationality law, at least one of which still goes against the court’s interpretation of the Constitution.
“We have been hearing voices that say the Constitutional Court cannot go against what the people voted for”, the court’s president José João Abrantes has said today. But these voices “forget that democratic legitimacy does not come solely from the vote”.
It does not matter that people might question the sense of a court of 13 prevailing over a majority of elected members of parliament, he stressed. “The separation of powers is an equally important principle for democracy, and has been so since the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen”.
Judge Abrantes was speaking at the opening session of the symposium “50 Years of the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic (1976–2026)” at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon.
He described the court he presides over as“the guardian of the 1976 Constitution” and “not just any constitution (…) Whenever a parliamentary majority wishes to curtail any fundamental right, the Constitution does not allow it. Ultimately, the Constitutional Court is there to ensure that this is the case and will remain so as long as we live in a state governed by the rule of law,” he insisted
José João Abrantes also suggested that “a constitutional revision is not urgent (…), let alone one containing the provisions that some voices have been advocating”.
For the President of the Constitutional Court, one thing would be “the introduction of some targeted amendments” relating “to the health situation, metadata or the criminal protection of animals”, another “is to bring into the fundamental law aspects that undermine constitutional consensus”.
All this could be interpreted on a ‘general level’. But the country is not at this level today: yesterday, two diplomas on changes to the nationality law finally reached the desk of the President. He now has eight days to decide whether to refer them to the Constitutional Court, and 20 days in which to approve or veto.
One of these law changes presses forwards with the notion that foreigners, who have gained Portuguese nationality, can be stripped of it IF they are condemned for serious crimes. This is already something that Constitutional judges have said violates “the principle of equality enshrined in Article 13 of the Constitution”. It is also a diploma that did not receive any votes in favour from parties of the left.
Thus, the next few days will be ‘very interesting’: to see how the president acts, and/ or whether PS Socialists once again request a Constitutional review of the diplomas (as they did previously, with the judges acknowledging inconstitutionalities).
Source material: Lusa/ Observador/ Diário de Notícias
