DIRECT
This Thursday, Parliament marks in a solemn session the 50th anniversary of the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic (CRP), approved on April 2, 1976 and which founded the basic principles of the democratic regime.
O The format of the ceremony will follow the pattern of the session that annually marks April 25, 1974with speeches by the President of the Republic, António José Seguro, the President of Parliament, José Pedro Aguiar-Branco, and the parties.
A ceremony will be attended by the usual institutional figuressuch as the Prime Minister, Luís Montenegro, and the rest of the Government, former heads of state and government officials, former presidents of parliament, the presidents of the Supreme Court of Justice and the Constitutional Court, among others, such as the “25 de Abril” Association or the “Salgueiro Maia” Association.
Once the interventions were completed, the fado singer Katia Guerreiro will perform the national anthem in one of the tribunes of the hemicycle.
Parliament also invited 95 deputies from the Constituent Assembly who approved the fundamental law 50 years ago.
“The highlight of this ceremony goes to the former deputies to the Constituent Assembly”, an official parliament source told Lusa, at the end of March.
On April 2, 1976, the 250 deputies of the Constituent Assembly, as a result of the first free elections in Portugal after the dictatorship, approved the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic, with only the CDS voting againstbreaking the unanimous favorable votes of the PS, PPD, PCP, MDP/CDE, UDP and ADIM.
The text resulted from 132 plenary sessions, which took up almost 500 hours, and 327 sessions of the 12 special commissions created at the time.
A fundamental law came into force on April 25, 1976 and established basic principles of the current democratic regime, such as the separation of powers, universal suffrage, as well as fundamental rights such as the right to life, personal integrity, freedom of expression, housing, health or education, among many others.
Since its approval, the Constitution was revised seven timeswith more structural and other more surgical changes, related to adherence to international treaties.
For the first time in the history of democracy, the parties on the right are enough to approve changes to the Constitutionwithout the need for any party on the left, namely the PS.
