The PCP has prepared a proposal to amend the GNR statute, adopted in 2017, with the main aim “bringing” this military security force closer to the civilian police, with an impact on working conditions and rights.
Alma Rivera, member of the PCP explains that this advancement “will have an impact on basic issues for GNR professionals, such as having a fixed working hours and holidaysrights that are often ignored under the argument of perpetual availability”. For example, he emphasizes that “holidays can be changed at any time invoking the need for service”.
The preamble to the proposal, to which DN had access, notes that “the security of people and property implies taking concrete measures that contribute to the effectiveness and prestige of the security forces” and that for this “it is important to create mechanisms that allow guarantees professionals who are part of the National Republican Guard (GNR) sufficient conditions for the performance of their duties entrusted to him by law”
The PCP defends a “clarification regarding the status, mission and regime applicable to that force”, whereby “aspects related to the working hours”, which would now be 36 hours per week and will proceed to “changes in the number of holidaysto the benefit of GNR professionals, depending on their age and seniority”.
Vacation days can be up to 28 per year. For example, the healthcare professional is entitled to a period of vacation leave to enjoy tracked or interpolated, calculated according to the following rules: 25 working days of vacation until reaching the age of 39; 26 working days holiday up to the age of 49; 27 working days holiday until reaching the age of 59; 28 working days holiday from the age of 59.
Another proposal is close to two previous proposals that were already made when the current Prime Minister, António Costa, was Minister of the Interior (2007) and later, when he was already Head of Government and Constança Urbano de Sousa had inherited that portfolio (2017). Both were refused by the presidents of the republic in office. First Cavaco Silva, then Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa.
This is because it was intended, and now the PCP returns to this claim, that military training was not necessary to advance in the officer’s career.
“The need to go to the Military Academy to access the officer’s career is eliminatedmeeting the significance of previous amendments to the statute and taking into account the need to bring the GNR closer to its functions, which are civilian,” propose the communists, who also want to see “removed the rank of brigadier generalseeking a statute that does not prevent access to general officer posts for GNR professionals who do not come from basic military higher education training, eliminating this distinction between them”.
Alma Rivera underlines that this is “an old claim within the GNR” and that “there is no valid reason to reserve these posts only for those with a military background”.
Another innovation proposed by the communists is the so-called “flag promise”, compulsory after completion of training. In a shorter version, the PCP takes the “sacrifice of one’s life” and “serving one’s country” out of this honor obligation.
In the current statute, the new guards pronounce the following text: «I swear, on my honor, as a Portuguese and as an officer/sergeant/guard of the National Republican Guard, the Constitution and other laws of the Republic are guarded; carry out military orders and duties in accordance with laws and regulations; act strictly in accordance with the authority granted to him; contribute with all my abilities to the prestige of the Guard and serve my fatherland under all circumstances and without limitations, even if I sacrifice my own life.
In the version proposed by the PCP it would read: “I swear, on my honor, to guard the Constitution and other laws of the Republic and to see that the Constitution and other laws of the Republic are guarded; the orders and duties of to perform what I am required to do in accordance with the law and regulations, and to act strictly in accordance with the authority with which he is vested.”
Source: DN
