How can you go to elections with illegal organs? “It is a legally obtuse situation”

Despite having illegal statutes and bodies by the Constitutional Court, the arrival continues to compete for elections due to failures in the law, which does not provide practical consequences.

VOLT presented 26 requests for challenge to the arrival lists For municipal elections in Lisbon, but the overwhelming majority has been rejected by the courts. According to the party itself, 36 rejections have already been counted, with different judges to justify decisions in a different way: some consider that VOLT has no legitimacy to contest lists in parishes where no candidates have candidates; Others refer the evaluation to higher instances. Several processes are still open.

At the center of the contestation is the internal situation of the arrival. Since 2020, the Constitutional Court (TC) has considered invalid several changes to the statutes and internal elections, because they concentrate excessive powers in the president’s figure and for failures in the convening of the conventions. In 2023 and 2024, the CT once again bog the ruling organs. Still, these deliberations have not prevented the party from running for successive elections.

The latest decision, issued in September by the Lisbon County Judicial Court, clarifies that it does not compete for the County Courts Evaluate internal deliberations of partiesbut only check the authenticity of the documents and the eligibility of the candidates.

The constitutionalist Vitalino Canas, heard by, considers that this reading may have Ignored TC decisionssince “the law requires applications to be approved by statutory organs competent and regularly constituted.”

Other experts underline the complexity of the problem. Teresa Violante speaks in a “BicachoAnd in a “legally obtuse situation”, noting that the law does not provide automatic effects on TC decisions.

Pedro Bacelar de Vasconcelos adds that, without action of the Public Prosecution Service or other competent entities, the illegalities end have no practical consequences.

The result is a paradoxical situation: although the arrival has been formally in statutory default for five years, continues to compete for elections. Municipal elections are held on October 12 and, despite the challenges, it seems that the arrival lists will remain valid in Lisbon.