PM wants “ambitious, effective, consensual agenda” within two months
Portugal’s Minister of Justice, Rita Júdice, is meeting separately with MPs from PSD, PS and CHEGA in parliament today, kicking off the dialogue on the fight against corruption announced by prime minister Luís Montenegro.
The meetings will continue next week with the other parliamentary political forces.
Within two months, Mr Montenegro intends to have “an ambitious, effective and consensual agenda” for combating corruption, an area he identifies as a priority, explains Lusa.
The main proposals within the government’s programme – and those presented by the parliamentary parties in their respective electoral programmes – which share the defence of strengthening human and material resources in this area, are listed below.
*** Government ***
The government plans to:
- regulate lobbying – which will include the creation of a Transparency Register with its own Code of Conduct
- implement the government’s “Legislative Footprint” (by publishing the various stages of each legislative process on the internet)
- reform the National Anti-Corruption Mechanism, the Transparency Body – which started at the beginning of this year – and the Political Accounts and Financing Body.
Other measures include the termination of the functions of public officials who have been replaced for more than nine months, extending the cooling-off period for the exercise of functions in private entities in the area of activity of political office holders, extending anti-corruption rules to political parties and creating the figure of Ombudsman in Public Services.
The government also proposes criminalising illicit enrichment – a solution that the Constitutional Court has stopped in the past – or, as an alternative, creating a legal mechanism that allows the State to “recover assets acquired by private individuals through illicit activities”.
Other measures in the government’s programme include strengthening human and material resources for the fight against corruption; increasing the ancillary penalty of being banned from holding public office; extending the measures of criminal law in the Penal Code and setting a maximum limit of 72 hours in the Code of Criminal Procedure for a court decision following an arrest.
In terms of anti-corruption education, it is proposed to include curricula on this subject at various levels of education and to publicise good practices and success stories in the prevention and repression of this crime.
*** PS ***
The PS dedicated almost a dozen proposals in its electoral programme to the area of transparency and the fight against corruption, proposing the regulation of interest representation activities with public entities and also “mechanisms for monitoring the legislative footprint that complements them”.
The Socialists pledge to provide the Transparency Authority with the means for public awareness campaigns and training actions on these issues aimed at public agents.
Other measures included in the programme include updating the first generation of codes of conduct for public institutions, reviewing the legislative framework on access to information and public administration documents, and continuing to develop the Mais Transparência portal.
The PS electoral programme planned to provide the National Anti-Corruption Mechanism with all the necessary resources and to ensure that the measures of the National Anti-Corruption Strategy are implemented, as well as to start preparing the successor strategy from the end of this year.
*** CHEGA***
The fight against corruption is one of the flagships of CHEGA’s message to the nation. The party’s electoral programme had an entire chapter dedicated to the “cleaning of Portugal of corruption”, with 21 measures, including the regulation of lobbying and the promotion of an “external financial audit of the government’s accounts for the last two legislatures”.
The party proposes creating the crime of illicit enrichment, confiscating the “proceeds of economic and financial crime” – putting them at the service of the State or returning them “to those who may have been harmed” – as well as “reintroducing the amounts seized into the economy and public investment”.
CHEGA also wants supervision and control by reinforcing the resources available in various organisations, increasing penalties and “guaranteeing minimum sentences that do not make it possible to suspend the sentence”, as well as increasing the limitation period for some crimes, such as influence peddling, receiving and/ or offering undue advantage, corruption and economic participation in business.
*** Liberal Initiative ***
IL has committed itself to “fostering transparency and promoting scrutiny,” fighting for a “more open and transparent regime,” and proposed in its electoral programme to strengthen the human and material resources of the Transparency Authority and the Political Accounts and Financing Authority.
Rui Rocha’s party is in favour of regulating lobbying, proposing compulsory registration in the Transparency Register of Interest Representation or Interest Groups for lobbyists who wish to work with public authorities.
The party is in favour of implementing mechanisms for prior verification of the “suitability of potential members of the government”.
***Bloco de Esquerda***
The Bloco advocates criminalising unjustified enrichment, with the confiscation of assets obtained in this way, as well as the end of ‘golden’ visas on the date of their announcement, 16 February 2023, and an audit of all visas issued.
The Bloc also proposes that the assets and income of political office holders and senior government officials be monitored by a Transparency Body “with the necessary resources” and that the list of public officials obliged to declare their assets be extended to “members of the government, State consultants and experts, members of parliament and heads of ministerial offices”.
The party’s programme proposes extending the cooling-off period in which ex-governors cannot be hired by companies in the sector they oversaw to six years, criminalising the use of services provided by entities located in offshore territories, and strengthening the human and logistical resources of the Entity for Political Accounts and Financing.
*** LIVRE ***
Livre proposes regulating lobbying “through permanent monitoring of the interests that intervene in public decision-making processes” and creating an independent public agency that centralises the functions of the National Anti-Corruption Mechanism, the Entity for Political Accounts and Financing, and the Entity for Transparency.
The party wants to promote a “breakthrough in the law on illicit and/ or unjustified enrichment, ensuring that the legal barriers artificially placed in the way of legislation in this area are overcome” and argues that the “existence of conditions for effective control of changes in the assets of public office holders” must be ensured.
Other LIVRE proposals include strengthening the means of fighting corruption, creating specialised courts in this area, and increasing the cooling off period when moving from public office to the private sector within the same sector or in roles where there is some degree of compromise, including the lobbying sector in Portugal or in the European Union.
*** PCP ***
The Communist Party advocates a “firm and serious fight against corruption and economic and financial crime” by banning “commercial relations with tax havens in non-cooperative jurisdictions” and making it compulsory to “register and tax transfers to tax havens”.
The Communists advocate “solutions to combat ‘revolving doors’ between the government and economic groups” and, unlike other parties, refuses to regulate lobbying, which they call the “crime of influence peddling”, as they believe it “constitutes yet another way of legitimising the influence of economic and financial interests on political power, contributing to its subordination and the degradation of the democratic regime”.
The PCP proposes providing DCIAP (the Central Department of Investigation and Criminal Action) with the necessary conditions “for a more prompt and effective response in the fight against corruption” and “revaluing the Judicial Police”.
*** PAN ***
PAN proposes the approval of “a national anti-corruption strategy 2025-2028” that defines “objective targets and metrics on where Portugal should be, or achieve, in each of the years it is in force.”
The People-Animals-Nature party is in favour of MPs being forced to adopt an exclusive regime (ie not have other paid employment) and the regulation of lobbying.
Other measures supported by PAN are an increase in the “cooling-off period” for those who hold public office to be able to move “into the private sector related to those functions”, more protection for whistleblowers, and the creation of an extraordinary 15% tax on “transfers to tax havens”.
PAN also proposes “strengthening human resources to combat corruption, fraud and economic and financial crime” and more investment in technology for this purpose, as well as increasing transparency in public procurement.
Source: LUSA
