In the decisive face-to-face between António José Seguro and André Ventura, RTP journalist Carlos Daniel confronted Seguro with the measure taken by Spain: the extraordinary regularization of half a million immigrants. Does the President of the Republic have, in this case, a “decorative” role or can the Government only move forward with his approval? SIC Verifies.
António José Seguro ‘skipped’ when responding to Carlos Daniel, in Tuesday’s debate, with another question: “what does the President intervene in there?”. With this question, he seemed to imply that the Executive could move forward without the need for intervention from the highest figure in the State. Ventura quickly said that he had to “enact it”.
On social media, Seguro’s question did not go unnoticed.
“Therefore, Seguro thinks that the President only serves as a decorative figure”, reads one tweet shared after the debate.
Given the confusion, could the Government legalize half a million immigrants without the President’s intervention?
No. Tellwhich is the responsibility of the President of the Republic, with regard to the practice of his own acts, “enact and publish laws, decree-laws and regulatory decrees” e “sign the resolutions of the Assembly of the Republic that approve international agreements and other Government decrees“.
To SIC, constitutionalist Teresa Violante explains that “the President of the Republic does not have competences in matters of migration policies“, but has skills at “the level of intervention in the legislative process”, as would be the case.
“A process of this nature will most likely be carried out, or would most likely be carried out, through either an authorized decree-law or a law of the Assembly of the Republic, as we are talking about matters relating to rights, freedoms and guarantees”, begins by detailing the constitutionalist.
Therefore, the President of the Republic would intervene at this level, with the decision to promulgate or veto diplomas or even send them for inspection by the Constitutional Court. If you veto, the veto on Government diplomas is absolute. If it is a diploma from the Assembly of the Republic, the diploma returns to Parliament.
“And the President of the Republic can still do something else: send it to the Constitutional Court, in case of ruling on unconstitutionality. Then it is linked to a veto due to unconstitutionality, it would no longer be a political veto, it would be the so-called legal veto”, explains Violante.
There is just one exception: “only if a measure of this nature passed through a resolution of the Council of Ministers“, as happened during the state of emergency imposed by covid-19. Then, “they escaped the control of the President of the Republic and also escaped possible supervision by the Constitutional Court”. However, as the constitutionalist highlights, this is just a “theoretical hypothesis” and therefore an exceptional case.
Teresa Violante reinforces, stating that the President would be “summoned in this process through its constitutional functions within the scope of the legislative process“.
SIC verifies that it is…
It is up to the President of the Republic to decide, within the scope of the legislative process, whether promulgates, vetoes or sends diplomas or decrees to the Constitutional Court. Extraordinary regularization measures, such as the one put up for debate this Tuesday, would fit into the legislative process that must pass the scrutiny of the State’s greatest figure. The only exception is through resolution of the Council of Ministersof an exceptional nature, as happened during the pandemic.
