The Lisbon Court of Appeal rejected André Ventura’s appeal this Friday and confirmed the initial decision of the Lisbon Civil Court that ordered the removal of the posters of his presidential candidacy that targeted the gypsy community.
The leader of Chega and invoked several reasons in your including the “right to freedom of political expression”, but the panel of judges of the Appeal considered that the exercise of this right “must be harmonized with other rights and interests of greater or equal dignity”, as is the case of “the dignity of the human person”, which was affected.
The initial action was brought by six complainantswho filed a civil complaint because they felt personally affected by the posters against the gypsy community and the decision to appeal was taken one day after the Public Prosecutor’s Office announced that the complaints calling for criminal action against the aforementioned posters were filed.
In the December decision by judge Ana Barão, André Ventura was ordered to “remove, within 24 hours, all posters placed on public roads and in different locations across the country with the words “gypsies must comply with the law – André Ventura presidential 2026”.
The judge also sentenced Ventura “to refrain from, in the future, determining or promoting, directly or indirectly, the posting of posters of identical or equivalent content”.
For each day of delay, for each poster that remained on the public street beyond the 24-hour period set by the court for removal, or for each new poster that could be placed, the leader of Chega would have to pay a fine of 2,500 eurosalso ordered the sentence.
Being a politician does not give you special rights
Now, faced with the deputy’s objection, the Court considered that the fact that André Ventura was politician does not give him special rights of freedom of expression that go beyond the Portuguese Constitution, the European Convention on Human Rights or the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, which prohibit “discrimination on grounds of ancestry, sex, race, language, territory of origin, religion, political or ideological beliefs, education, economic situation, social condition or sexual orientation”.
“Politicians and other public figures, whether due to their exposure, the debatability of the ideas they profess, or even the control to which they must be subject”, consider the judges, “must be more tolerant of criticism than individuals”, and a “greater degree of intensity” of their statements is also admissible.
Although the Constitution does not establish a hierarchy of rights (freedom of expression and the right to a good name or non-discrimination), the European Court of Human Rights defined that freedom of expression has restrictions, “namely due to the prohibition of discrimination, together with the right to respect for private life”.
For the judges, “it is also clear that the message ‘gypsies must obey the law’ is discriminatory“, because “the assertion is implicit that ‘gypsies don’t follow the law’, which has to be combined with the negative discrimination that gypsy communities are subjected to in Portuguese society.”
André Ventura also claimed that “the rules of procedural legitimacy” were violated, claiming that the six authors of the action did not have the right to do so because they were not personally targeted by the posters.
In the ruling, the judges state that the authors “initiated the action invoking their own personal interest, translated into the violation of their right to moral personality”, because they are gypsies.
“In fact, by proclaiming ‘gypsies must obey the law’, the poster has an implicit message that ‘gypsies don’t follow the law’this is the immediately apprehensible meaning, which is why it contains a discriminatory message towards all people of a specific ethnic group, which historically and socially is recognized as being the object of widespread discrimination”, say the judges.
In the appeal, André Ventura claimed that there was an “error in the judgment of the matter of fact considered proven”, particularly with regard to the damages claimed by the complainants, as there is a negative discourse in Portuguese society about the community, but this request was denied by the judges, stating that “the fact that negative discrimination against gypsy communities has existed for decades does not mean that [os cartazes] are irrelevant to the authors”.
Finally, André Ventura claimed that the decision to pay 2,500 euros per day per poster after the decision was disproportionate, something that was also rejected by the three judges.
The judges signed this ruling on the day the Public Prosecutor’s Office announced that filed requests to open criminal proceedings about the same case.
