TC rejects Montenegro’s appeal to prevent disclosure of Spinumviva customers

The Constitutional Court rejected the appeal presented by the Prime Minister to prevent the inclusion of Spinumviva’s clients in its register of interests, but the decision is not final because its annulment was requested.

The decision was reported by Público and confirmed to Lusa by the Constitutional Court in a written response in which the date of the decision is not advanced. Ratton Palace indicates that the “court plenary has already issued a decision not to hear the appeal, but it has not yet become final” due to an “incident of an allegation of nullity” that will have to be subject to consideration by the Constitutional Court.

The Constitutional Court further clarifies that this case follows the “rule relating to the publication of rulings relating to declarations of income, assets and interests”, which means that the decision will only be published “on the Constitutional Court’s website after the respective final judgment”.

The case dates back to July last year, when it was reported that the prime minister presented for public consultation some elements of his declarations of income, assets and interests delivered to the Entity for Transparency (EpT), the body responsible for managing the register of interests of those holding public office.

Among the contested elements was the customer list of Spinumviva, a company founded by Montenegro and currently owned by his children. The EpT had asked the Prime Minister to present this information as part of the verifications carried out on the statements submitted by the Government leader.

Disagreeing with the Entity for Transparency, Montenegro filed an appeal with the Constitutional Court to challenge the organization’s decision regarding the disclosure of some of this data.

Prime Minister clears doubts

The Prime Minister highlighted that the Constitutional Court’s decision does not involve any failure to comply with the declaration obligation.

“Not knowing definitively the court’s decision or non-pronouncement, although it was anticipated that it may not have occurred for reasons of deadline – that is, for an administrative reason – I will wait. But, just to clarify, I can say that there is no question of any unfulfilled declaration duty”, replied the leader of the executive.

According to the Prime Minister, “what is at stake is a declaration that has already been made and, subsequently, its effect in terms of publicity”.

“That’s all that is at stake so there can be no doubt. In this specific case, this publicity did not occur through normal means, but through a leak of information that you journalists will know better than I do”, he added.