The President of the Republic vetoed the amendment to the law on metadata and asked Parliament to find, if possible, a better solution during the current legislature to the unconstitutionality declared by the Constitutional Court on Monday.
“Given the urgency and sensitivity of the issue under consideration, the President of the Republic has also requested the Assembly of the Republic to consider, if possible during the current legislative term, a better solution to the declared unconstitutionality”said a note published on the presidency’s website.
The note indicates that Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa has vetoed changes to the law regulating access to metadata related to electronic communications for criminal investigation purposes.
“According to the ruling of the Constitutional Court, which considered as unconstitutional the unconstitutional part of the diploma submitted to preventive inspection of constitutionality, the President of the Republic returned, without proclamation, to the Assembly of the Republic, under the conditions of paragraph 1 of article 279 of the Constitution. , the Decree of the Assembly of the Republic regulating access to metadata relating to electronic communications for the purposes of criminal investigations, which makes the second amendment to Law No 32/2008 of 17 July, which transposes Directive 2006/ into national legal system 24/CE, of the European Parliament and of the Council, of 15 March”refers to the same note.
This Monday, the Constitutional Court declared unconstitutional the parliamentary decree regulating access to metadata of communications for the purpose of criminal investigations, because it goes beyond “the limits of proportionality in the limitation of fundamental rights”.
The announcement was made at the headquarters of the Constitutional Court (TC) in Lisbon by its president, José João Abrantes, who said that nine judges, against three, have ruled on the unconstitutionality of the decree rule providing for the widespread retention of data about traffic and location for a maximum period of six months.
For the judges at Ratton Palace, the standard in question goes further “the limits of proportionality in limiting the fundamental rights to informational self-determination and the reservation of privacy in private life”.
The decree had been approved in the General Assembly of the Republic on October 13, in a final global vote, with votes in favor from PS, PSD and Chega and votes against from IL, PCP, BE and Livre, and was then sent by the President. of the Republic to the TC to monitor compliance with the fundamental law.
The rule that the TC declared unconstitutional last Monday provided for the general retention of traffic and location data “for a period of three months from the date of closure of the communication, this period being deemed to be extended to six months unless the holder has objected”.
The Palácio Ratton judges considered that the two other rules whose review had been requested by the President of the Republic were not unconstitutional.
In concrete terms, the articles requiring data to be kept “in Portugal or in the territory of another Member State of the European Union” are in accordance with the Constitution and data subjects must, as a rule, be informed “within a maximum period of 10 days” when the data in question is accessed.
This decree, jointly drafted by PS and PSD, was a way for deputies to overcome the declaration of unconstitutionality already pronounced by the TC on April 12, 2022 regarding the so-called metadata law.
Source: DN
