The PSD on Monday reiterated its political objections to the diploma on the Single Point of Contact for International Police Cooperation, as the new law poses threats to citizens’ rights and to police effectiveness.
The Constitutional Court (TC) ruled that the decree on the Single Point of Contact for International Police Cooperation was constitutional, after the President of the Republic requested a preventive inspection of the diploma. After this ruling, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa announced the diploma almost immediately.
Talking to Lusa, the first vice president of the PSD, Paulo Rangel, stressed that the party’s main objections have always been political in nature and that they remain🇧🇷 “Our disagreement was not only constitutional, but also political, from a political point of view it is dangerous, regardless of whether it is formally constitutional,” said the MEP.
Despite stating that the TC’s decision “will have to be respected”, Rangel found the judges’ decision “too formal” and without taking into account the operational side of the police investigation, which the PSD says is harmed by this law. “I think the TC does not have an exact view on the operational side, if it had perhaps gone further in its investigation into the violation of the autonomy of the prosecution (MP) and the violation of the separation of powers,” he said. considered.
On the one hand, the PSD believes that this legislative solution “contradicts citizens’ rights because it concentrates police powers and criminal information in the immediate sphere of the Prime Minister and not within the framework of a criminal procedure led by the Member of Parliament”.
“This concentration will seriously harm the transfer of relevant information to the judicial police in particular and to the investigating police in general, because organizations such as Europol and Interpol will be reluctant to hand over criminal information to politically dependent authorities.” , he thought. . In other words, for the PSD, the new law will “damage the PJ’s investigation,” particularly in crimes such as money laundering.
On the other hand, the vice president of the PSD criticized the concentration of powers in the secretary general of the internal security system, who “began to be heard in the nominations of all police commanders” (PJ, GNR and PSP).
“It intervenes in the choice of all police commanders and even has access to criminal information that it should not have access to under any circumstances,” he lamented, deeming this new diploma “very serious and very pernicious”.
Paulo Rangel assured that the PSD will continue to fight “so that the police force is not concentrated in a superpolice”, which he has even qualified as “Pina Manique of the modern age, with access to all highly sensitive information and who will command the whole police.” “.
“We are going to look into this issue and fight so that it can be passed back into law in the future. It is a major setback for those who rely on the autonomy of the MP and even the autonomy and specialization of the PJ and in its specific It is mainly a political mistake, the constitutional issue is at least provisionally resolved by the TC,” he said.
When asked whether the Social Democrats admit to asking for successive inspections of the diploma, the party’s First Deputy Chairman reiterated that constitutionality was never the Social Democrats’ first argument against this law.
“António Costa wanted to concentrate all the police for a long time and that’s what is being done here,” he criticized.
The President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, asked for a preventive inspection of the decree “since it is a fundamental rights issue, which caused division in the middle of the parliament, for political and constitutional reasons” and “with the purpose of ensuring legality”.
Source: DN
