The Transparency Commission deems socialist Carlos Pereira’s participation in a meeting with the former TAP executive president “politically objectionable”, but rejects that delegates could be prevented from participating in meetings they deem useful for the mandate.
PSD and Chega had asked the Transparency and Statute of Deputies Committee to issue an opinion on the presence of Socialist deputy Carlos Pereira at a meeting with the former TAP executive chairman on the eve of his parliamentary hearing in January, in the parliamentary committee for economics, and whether there was a conflict of interest because he was later coordinator of the PS in the investigative committee TAP.
The opinion, written by PCP deputy Alma Rivera, states that “the participation of a delegate from the parliamentary group supporting the government in a meeting convened by the government itself with the participation of the management of a public capital company, with the aim of preparing a hearing on the same company, providing information to that parliamentary group which is not provided to the others puts it in a privileged position contrary to the principle of a single statute as set out in Article 1(2) of the Statute of Members”.
The opinion also states that this situation “raises suspicion about the conditioning of the questions and answers to be asked in committee, and is therefore politically reprehensible”.
However, “regardless of the judgment of political censorship legitimately made of the facts described, the powers of deputies and parliamentary groups” deriving from the Constitution, the Statute of Deputies, the Rules of Procedure of the Assembly of the Republic, the Code of Conduct for Deputies and legal regime of parliamentary inquiries, “imply that no deputy may be prevented from taking part in any meeting which he deems useful for the exercise of his mandate”.
It also concludes that “the appointment of deputies to integrate a parliamentary committee, whether permanent or individual, is an exclusive right of parliamentary groups”.
This advice was approved today by the 14th committee with the positive votes of PS and PCP, the abstention of the Liberal Initiative (IL) and the votes against of PSD and Chega. BE was absent from the room at the time of the vote.
In the debate that took place before the vote, Representative Alma Rivera stated that, from the point of view of the norms governing the mandate of delegates, “there is no impediment that can be invoked”, pointing out that “the rest is political judgment”.
The communist also defended that the opinion she had formulated is “balanced in the sense that it does not ignore the concerns that a situation like this may raise, but also does not draw conclusions that cannot be drawn under the current order.”
Deputy Emília Cerqueira, from the PSD, believed that the advice gives a “disconnected reading from reality” and should include references to “public and known facts” of “more or less secret meetings of a parliamentary group”.
And he believed the issue is related to the “implications of a delegate declaring that he has no conflict of interest when making question-and-answer combinations.”
Rui Paulo Sousa, of Chega, pointed out that it gives advice “one on the nail and the other on the horseshoe” and opined that when Deputy Carlos Pereira “says he has no conflict of interest because of his participation in that meeting” there is no doubt that there is no conformity” with the provisions governing the exercise of the mandate.
Carlos Guimarães Pinto, from IL, pointed out that the “legal and political dimensions cannot be completely separated” and defended that a deputy who integrates a committee of inquiry “has a greater responsibility with regard to possible conflicts of interest”.
For his part, the socialist João Castro deplored the use of the term “secret meeting” and the “continuous repetition that question and answer were combined”.
The PS deputy said he “fully endorses that no deputy can be prevented from taking part” in a meeting he deems useful and reiterated that the meeting between socialists, members of the government and the former CEO of TAP was intended to ” to prepare for the hearing”. in the of Economics” and took place before the start of the Commission of Inquiry.
“We still do not understand how a meeting held before the start of its duties as a parliamentary inquiry commission can harm that same parliamentary inquiry commission,” he stressed.
Carlos Pereira was coordinator of the PS in the Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry TAP, but left this committee in mid-April.
Source: DN
