President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa says he will wait for the Constitutional Court to rule before taking any step on the newly approved Nationality Law, which the Socialist Party (PS) has asked judges to review.
Speaking to reporters after an event in Lisbon, Marcelo said he had only just learned that the PS parliamentary group would push for a preventive constitutional review of the decree passed in parliament last month.
“The president’s role now is to wait for the Constitutional Court,” he said. “The Court will schedule the case, analyse it and send its decision to me. If it finds the law unconstitutional, the president must veto it. If not, the president has a period in which to consider it politically,” Marcelo said.
Asked whether he himself planned to request a review – either of the Nationality Law or the separate decree creating the loss of nationality as an accessory penalty – Marcelo said he had just returned from Angola and had not yet examined either document.
“I’m not saying any more at the moment, because I’m going to scrutinise the bills in the next few days. There are eight days for that. Obviously, I’m going to scrutinise the bills, but right now I don’t have anything else to say, except that I’ve learnt, I didn’t know, as nobody else knew, about this PS initiative,” the president added.
Both decrees, originally proposed by the PSD/CDS-PP government, passed on October 28 with 157 votes in favour (PSD, Chega, IL, CDS-PP and JPP) and 64 against (PS, Livre, PCP, BE and PAN). They reached the Belém Palace on Tuesday.
Under the Constitution, changes to citizenship rules must be made through an organic law. These laws can be sent to the Constitutional Court for preventive review by the president, the prime minister or at least 46 MPs. And when such a request is made, the president is barred from promulgating the law until the judges deliver their ruling.
The decree revising the Nationality Law extends the residency requirements for foreigners seeking citizenship and tightens access for those born in Portugal.
The separate decree amending the Penal Code would allow courts to strip nationality from dual nationals sentenced to four years or more in prison within ten years of acquiring Portuguese citizenship.
Both measures passed with a two-thirds majority, which means parliament can reapprove them even if the Constitutional Court finds parts of them unconstitutional.
To learn more about the planned changes, read our previous article.
