André Ventura, president of Chega
“Movement against narrative” argues that Ventura’s party disrespects essential values and principles of the Constitution of the Republic.
This Wednesday, the Constitutional Affairs Committee partially admitted to debate a petition do “Movement against narrative” what calls for the illegalization of Chegaarguing that this party disrespects essential values and principles of the Constitution of the Republic.
The report on the admissibility of the petition, authored by the socialist deputy Isabel Moreira, had the votes against Chega, abstention from CDS and was approved by PSD, PS and Liberal Initiative.
Moments before the vote, social democratic deputy Paulo Marcelo highlighted what was at stake in the decision to be taken by the Constitutional Affairs Committee.
“The PSD will vote in favor of this report, but this does not imply that we agree with the arguments legal, constitutional, political that are adduced by the petitioners. This is a formal admission of the petition, which had already been made previously, which received a technical note from the parliamentary services”, he stressed.
According to Paulo Marcelo, with the vote now held, the Constitutional Affairs Committee is only limited to “giving reason” to this technical note from the parliamentary services.
“It also emphasizes that two of the claims that were requested by the petitioners have no constitutional basis and, therefore, are rejected”, he added, touching on a point that had previously been addressed by socialist deputy Isabel Moreira.
Among other aspects, according to the report, the 9,793 petitioners make requests that go beyond the powers of the Assembly of the Republic, as they are “based on constitutional norms that do not support them“.
“This is the case with the request for successive inspection of the constitutionality from Chega. Inspection of constitutionality is the responsibility of the Constitutional Court (…) and focuses on standards. Therefore, as there is no question of the preventive inspection of the constitutionality of any norm contained in a decree that has been sent to the President of the Republic for promulgation as an organic law (…) or the successive and abstract inspection of the constitutionality and legality of norms (..) the petition must be partially rejected”, it is argued.
The petitioners’ point regarding the request for submission of the text to the State Councilas it is a political consultation body for the President of the Republic.
In general terms, the petitioners understand that Chega’s action has revealed “a serious disrespect for the essential values and norms of democracyexpressed in the Constitution of the Republic.
They point out “attempts at constitutional revision that they consider extreme; the normalization of hate, racist and misogynistic speech; the threat to rights; the disrespect for the symbols and values of April 25th and the 1976 Constitution; authoritarian appeals against the press and opponents; and systematic and deliberate institutional behavior that degrades parliamentary debate and incites violence and hatred”.
In the part admitted by the report, they ask for the creation of a “special commission of inquiry or evaluation to study the phenomenon of Chega and other rising far-right movements”.
In the short debate held before the vote at the Constitutional Affairs Committee, deputy Vanessa Barata repudiated the content of the petition.
“We are facing a attempted subversion of the rule of law Democratic and political persecution of a legitimized party, both by the Constitutional Court and by popular vote. In Portugal, since the entry into force of the 1976 Constitution, There is no record of any political party that has been effectively illegalized or extinguished by the Constitutional Court based on these grounds”, I maintain.
Vanessa Barata later noted that “the admissibility note of this report itself recognizes the existence of legally untenable proposals”.
“The intervention of the Council of State is also requested, ignoring that it is a consultative body of the President of the Republic and is not an appeal body for parliamentary petitions. We are faced with failures that demonstrate that this petition is legally unreasonable and based on a profound lack of knowledge, or, alternatively, on a deliberate disregard for the Constitution that they claim to defend so much”, he added.
