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Facade of the Ratton Palace, headquarters of the STF
The Constitutional Court “did not verify the legality” of the initiative, due to the lack of “effective control of signatures” — and because the questions asked are “unequivocally inconsistent with the legal framework”.
The holding of the referendum on Local Accommodation in Lisbon, in December by the Lisbon City Council, was rejected by the Constitutional Court.
“Decide-se not verify the legality of the local referendum, by popular initiative, whose holding was decided by the Lisbon Municipal Assembly, in its session on December 3, 2024”, reads a ruling from the Constitutional Court.
The ruling was released this Friday, the date on which the deadline ended 25 days for preventive verification of constitutionality and legality by this constitutional body.
On December 9th, the president of the Lisbon Municipal Assembly, Rosario Farmhousesubmitted to the Constitutional Council the deliberation regarding the holding of a local referendum, by popular initiative, with subscription listss of citizens subscribing to two batches, presented at different times.
The last batch will have been presented to “cure any defects” of the first batch of signatures.
If the referendum is held, promoted by the Housing Referendum Movement, it will be the first time that this instrument is used in the country by popular initiative.
The referendum proposed by MRH includes two questions:
- Agrees to amend the Municipal Local Accommodation Regulation in the sense that the Lisbon City Council, within 180 days, order cancellation of local accommodation registered in properties intended for housing?
- You agree to change the Municipal Local Accommodation Regulation so that local accommodation is no longer allowed in properties intended for housing?
To be considered, the popular initiative must be proposed to the deliberative assembly for a minimum of 5,000 or 8% of voting citizens registered in the respective area, whichever is smaller.
MRH started by delivering a first batch of signatures, with 6,528 subscribers, with the General Secretariat of the Ministry of Internal Administration informing, on December 3, that only 4,863 voters are “registered in the electoral register in the respective area” of the municipality of Lisbon.
In view of this, three days after deliberating on the holding of the local referendum, the movement handed over to the AML a second batch of signatures, with 612 more voting citizens registered in the municipality of Lisbon, who went to the Constitutional Court without prior verification.
Despite considering that the process presented by the president of the AML appears to be “regularly instructed”, the TC considered that the collection of the necessary signatures and their verification “It is an essential formalitywhose non-observance ccompromises the very existence of a valid popular initiativegiving rise to relevant illegality, due to violation of a precept set out in the Legal Regime of the Local Referendum”.
“Hence it is also essential that a ceffective control of signatures, right before the deliberationa relevant aspect in the process of preventive inspection of the constitutionality and legality of the referendum”, indicates the TC ruling.
The constitutional body argues that AML should have checked the total of the signatures it received, with the possibility of “requesting the competent public administration services to carry out administrative verification, by sampling, of the authenticity of the signatures and the identification of the subscribers of the initiative”.
O second batch of signatures should have been verified and, “before the defect was remedied by the presentation of new signatures and their control, the AML would not be authorized to proceed with the conversion of the popular initiative into deliberation”, reads the ruling.
The TC considers that “one of the fundamental requirements was not met of the popular referendum initiative – the subscription of the proposal by 5,000 voters registered in the municipality of Lisbon”.
In justifying the decision, the Constitutional Court pointed out the need to identify the leaders of this popular initiativer, “in a number of no less than 15”, and for the AML to request an opinion from the Mayor of Lisbon, since it is the municipal executive that it is up to you to determine the cancellation registration of the local accommodation establishment under the conditions provided for by law, in particular the Legal Regime for the Operation of Local Accommodation Establishments.
AML did not ask the mayor this opinion, so that “this formality was also not observed”, according to the TC ruling.
“By themselves, these defects would impede the success of the initiativebut, even so, an analysis will be carried out regarding the substantive level”, said the Constitutional Court, highlighting that the local referendum questionsincluding the prohibition of local accommodation establishments in properties intended for housing, “are unequivocally inconsistent with the legal framework”.
For this court, the Municipal Regulation on Local Accommodation cannot provide for this prohibition solution “neither through the definition of ‘valid use’ of the property nor through the establishment of containment and sustainable growth zones”.
In conclusion, this constitutional body stated that there is “an irremediable defect in the referendum deliberation, which definitively prevents its holding, making it unnecessary to proceed with the assessment of other issues”.
