This Monday, the Braga court ordered the suspension of the case in which one of the defendants was the leader of Chega, André Ventura, due to a dinner meeting for his presidential candidacy in January 2021, at the height of the pandemic.
The verdict was to be read today, but the judge in charge of the case declared the criminal proceedings terminated and ordered the archiving of the files, for legal reasons related to legislation released during the Covid-19 pandemic.
André Ventura and the other four defendants in the case were charged with a crime of disobedience, which until January 22, 2021 was characterized in the ‘covid legislation’, but from that day, with a new law, it became only an administrative offense .
According to the judge, even if the conduct mentioned in the accusation were proven, the defendants could now not be punished for a crime that is no longer defined in the law.
The decision to close the case is in line with what was promoted as part of the investigation by the Public Prosecution Service itself, which asked that the defendants not appear in court, taking into account precisely that the crime was disobedience committed. has now been “transformed” into violation.
‘I’m just sorry I didn’t know [do decreto-lei nº 8-A/2021] before I made the accusation, otherwise I certainly wouldn’t have done it”the prosecutor said, highlighting that “confusing” laws were in place during the Covid-19 pandemic.
This legislative decree, dated January 22, 2021, changes the administrative enforcement regime in the context of calamities, calamities and alarm situations and moves to the administrative enforcement qualification of the duties imposed by the state of emergency.
In addition to André Ventura, the other defendants were Rui Sousa, the national representative of the presidential candidacy, and Filipe Melo, leader of the Braga do Chega district.
The three are currently deputies in the Assembly of the Republic.
Also in the dock was the couple who owned the restaurant where the dinner meeting took place.
It involved a dinner meeting on January 17, 2021 at a restaurant in Tebosa, Braga, where approximately 120 people gathered.
In the indictment, the Public Prosecutor’s Office states that four days earlier a decree of the President of the Republic was published, extending the state of emergency for another fifteen days from the 16th, based on the verification of a public emergency situation.
On the 14ththe government published the decree regulating the modification and extension of the state of emergency and which, among several other measures, established a general obligation of house arrest, with the exclusion of this obligation to participate, in any capacity, in the context of the election campaign or the election of the President of the Republic.
The decree also included a rule allowing restaurants and similar establishments to operate solely for the purpose of cooking activities intended for consumption outside the establishment.
In this way, the MP emphasized, the possibility of meals in any form being served in those establishments was excluded.
“It was also agreed that events during election campaigns would only take place in closed spaces if they took place in auditoriums, conference pavilions, multi-purpose rooms, conference halls and multi-purpose pavilions,” the complaint states.
For the MP, the combination of these rules “makes it clear that restaurants must remain closed” and that election campaign events must not take place there.
In court, the defendants claimed that they were convinced of the legality of the initiative and that they always had the approval of the Directorate General of Public Health for all campaign actions, even if “a posteriori”.
Source: DN
