The President of Portugal, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, vetoed this Friday (19) the new nationality law after the Constitutional Court (TC) announced this week that it considers several articles of the text to be contrary to the Magna Carta, approved by Parliament with the votes of the alliance between the conservative government and the nationalist right.
Rebelo de Sousa made the announcement in a statement released by the Presidency of the Republic, in which he explained that he returned the proposal to change the law to Parliament without promulgating it due to the court’s opinion, following a request from the Socialist Party (PS) for several articles of the text to be revised.
After the decision of the Constitutional Court, “the President of the Republic returned to the Assembly of the Republic, without promulgation, (…) the Decrees of the Assembly” on the changes “to the Nationality Law and the Penal Code”, said Rebelo de Sousa in the note.
In a letter sent to the President of Parliament, José Pedro Aguiar Branco, the President of Portugal explained that he vetoes the changes in accordance with the Constitution, which establishes that if the TC rules on the unconstitutionality of a norm, it must be vetoed by the head of State.
Last Monday, when announcing the court’s decision, the president of the Constitutional Court, José João Abrantes, explained that the plenary considered four norms of Parliament’s decree to amend the nationality law unconstitutional, having ruled unanimously on three and by a majority on one.
One of the proposals that the court unanimously considered unconstitutional is the one that seeks to prevent access to Portuguese citizenship to anyone who has been convicted of a crime and served two or more years in prison in the country.
The other two unanimous points were the point that establishes that the consolidation of nationality should not be applied in situations of “manifest fraud” and that which indicates that the granting of citizenship would be pending on the date of entry into force of changes in legislation, for the reassessment of compliance with legal requirements.
The fourth proposal declared unconstitutional, approved by a majority, with one dissenting vote, stipulates the cancellation of nationality registration in the case of conduct contrary to integration into the Portuguese community and its institutions.
The court also declared unconstitutional some points of an amendment to the Penal Code approved in October in Parliament, in parallel to the nationality bill, which contemplates the loss of Portuguese citizenship for those sentenced to prison sentences equal to or greater than four years for crimes against life, physical integrity or terrorist offenses, among others, committed in the ten years after naturalization.
