The President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, on Wednesday asked the Assembly of the Republic – “if it considers such reflection relevant and necessary” – to review the legislation on the incompatibility law.
“In fact, the complex legal tangle in Portuguese society has sparked great controversy, in a vital matter for citizens’ trust in institutions, resulting from a constitutional imposition, doubts expressed even by the agency’s advisory board of the Attorney General of the Republic”reads the note published on the website of the Presidency of the Republic.
Marcelo therefore asks for a “clarification”, if the Assembly of the Republic deems it necessary, on “the legislation in force relating to the exercise of functions by holders of political and senior public offices, their declarative obligations and the respective sanction regime, by translating them into one and that of course regulates in particular the exercise of functions, the respective decision-making processes, their family relations and others, eliminating the interpretive doubts or ambiguities that still exist.”
The head of state invokes “the interpretative doubts underlying the regimes in question” already expressed by the Advisory Council of the Prosecutor General’s Office, on two occasions, in Opinion No.
“In the first case, referring to a possible interpretation in accordance with the constitution of the regime in question, to bring it into line with the principle of proportionality, it finally performs a ‘teleological reduction’, to distinguish the situations provided for by law,” he emphasizes.
With regard to the second opinion, the President of the Republic points out that this advisory council of the PGR states in one of its conclusions that the “literal fixation on the concepts of public procurement and collective person (…) is a double factor of obscurity and carefully should be considered, either by the parliamentary legislature or by the government, as the supreme organ of public administration”.
“It does not seem convenient for the interpreter to have to resort to interpretive methods such as teleological reduction or admit the existence of ambiguities in this matter,” defends the head of state.
For this reason, he justifies, he intended to send a message to the Assembly of the Republic on this matter, starting by emphasizing that the Constitution requires that “the legislature determines the duties, responsibilities and incompatibilities of political office holders, as well as the consequences of non-compliance”.
Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa then recalls the many laws passed by the Assembly of the Republic in this area since 1983, up to the most recent legislation, of December 2021, on crimes of responsibility committed by political office holders and, also, the statute of entity for transparency , approved by Organic Law No. 4/2019.
Marcelo’s request for clarification on the incompatibility law comes at a time when cases involving members of the government, namely the Minister of Infrastructure, Pedro Nuno Santos, and the Minister of Territorial Cohesion, Ana Abrunhosa, have sparked controversy.
The Ministry of Infrastructure and Housing invoked an opinion of the Advisory Council of the Public Prosecution Service at the request of the government in 2019 and announced that Pedro Nuno Santos is not in a situation of incompatibility. The clarification came after the Observador newspaper reported that the company Temacal, owned by Minister Pedro Nuno Santos and his father, will have benefited from a government contract by direct agreement.
The Minister of Territorial Cohesion, Ana Abrunhosa, assured that she has never had any direct or indirect intervention in the approval of applications or the granting of European aid, in an article that responded to the controversy regarding the financing of her company’s business. man.
In an opinion article published in the newspaper Público, Ana Abrunhosa pointed out that some reports of the support approved for the company in which her husband is a partner “deliberately gave the insinuation that this support was only possible” because he was a member. from the government and assured that she would not interfere in the management of her husband’s businesses, who was already an “entrepreneur, son and grandson of entrepreneurs” before being invited to government positions.
“To make it absolutely clear, neither I nor any of my secretaries of state have ever had any involvement, directly or indirectly, in the process of approving candidatures, nor in allocating any financial aid,” the minister said.
The president of the republic had already announced on Tuesday that he would ask parliament to reconsider the 2019 law on incompatibilities and impediments to political office holders, so that “where to establish a regime that assuages the fears of Portuguese society” with possible situations of ” nepotism or excessive customer relationships”.
“If what has been approved in 2019 is considered insufficient, I think that there, either on the initiative of the government or on the initiative of the parliament, but the final decision is made by the parliament, then consideration should be given to adopting a new law,” said Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa.
In his opinion, the current law, which he has enacted, “does not restrict the participation of relatives or relatives of guardians at all levels in an unacceptable, unacceptable or unthinkable way”.
with Lusa
News updated at 11:55
Source: DN
