Chega wants to hear in parliament the Cardinal Patriarch of Lisbon and the members of the independent commission that has studied child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church and will propose a series of legislative initiatives on the subject.
“Chega decided to summon to parliament, and to the first commission (of constitutional affairs), not only the Cardinal Patriarch of Lisbon, Manuel Clemente, but also all the members of the (independent) commission who were part of the study and analysis of the sexual abuse of minors in the Catholic Church, and specialized magistrates in this field”André Ventura announced at a press conference in parliament.
According to the Chega leader, it is important to listen to these entities to understand the “best way” to legislate in this area. The party will also propose the creation of a parliamentary working group “focused specifically on the sexual abuse of minors and the follow-up of this case”.
The goal, he explained, is to have a permanent group in the Assembly of the Republic for “legislative, institutional, work improvement”, to “form a solid legal building in terms of combating the sexual abuse of minors”.
On March 9, Chega has scheduled a debate on the theme of “Combating the Sexual Abuse of Minors in Portugal” and will present a series of five legislative initiatives, with Ventura highlighting the increase of the statute of limitations for this type of crime under the conditions have been proposed by the independent commission dealing with abuses in the Catholic Church. “The current statute of limitations for these crimes is generally 10 years, we propose extending it to 15 years”he said, adding that Chega also wants to change the start of this period, proposing that “it doesn’t start counting until the victim’s 30th birthday.” “It’s not until the victim turns 30 that this statute of limitations begins to count, whether it’s the current 10 years or the 15 proposed by Chega”it came out.
According to Ventura, there is the possibility of “a broad consensus” on the issue, which means that recent cases “cannot be repeated again without justice being able to act”.
The party will also take a legislative initiative to create a national plan to combat pedophilia, “both within private and public institutions” and wants an “investigation into victimization and the creation of a permanent reporting line”. “Chega will challenge all parties to a major national inquiry into victimization, some kind of commission or expanded supercommittee, not only for the Church but also for the vast majority of public and private institutions.”he said.
Ventura explained that the party wants a national victim survey to be established “with the support of various structures, namely the National Institute of Statistics (INE), but also the Ministry of Justice and Education to create a model in which the can be, together with justice, education and social entities, an agglomeration of data” to know “how many complaints there have been to date and where they are, how these processes ended” and whether the names of the victims are known or not.
The goal is to create a “great data aggregator to begin preparing for a national victimization inquiry,” including with the collaboration of the Catholic Church or other agencies for the reception of minors, he said.
Regarding the aggravation of sentences for sex crimes, Ventura specified that Chega wants to move from the current prison sentence of 1 to 8 years to 2 to 10 years in cases of child sexual abuse, and even that “when the sexual act is relief”, that the sentence will move from the current 3 to 10 years, to 5 to 10 years, what “it will have consequences for the application of coercive measures, which can go up to the most severe measure, preventive detention, but also in relation to the suspensory effect of the punishment that is often applied”. As for the dependent minors, the party proposes to extend the sentence to a maximum of 12 years in prison, removing the current eight.
“Chega will also not propose the creation, because it already exists, but the reformulation of the list of sexual aggressors that currently exists and we will try to make it public, not with the disclosure of the names directly, but with a formula, namely stating in that area how many persons convicted of sexual abuse or sexual crimes there are and that anyone can access them, without access to the names of the people and their categorization”he added.
Source: DN
