The Constitution of the Portuguese Republic, hereinafter also called CRP, is our Fundamental Law and was approved 50 years ago (after a ‘marathon’ of 10 months, 132 plenary sessions and a siege of Parliament)1-2.
It would end up being approved, only with the CDS voting againstbreaking the unanimous favorable votes of the PS, PPD, PCP, MDP/CDE, UDP and ADIM.
The work session on April 2, 1976 proved to be extensive, starting at 9:45 am and only ending at 10:50 pm, according to the Constituent Assembly diaries, after the Fundamental Law was promulgated by the President of the Republic, Francisco da Costa Gomes, in plenary3. At that time, “vibrant”, “prolonged, standing applause” was heard and the National Anthem was sung.
Symbolically entered 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, designated as rights, freedoms and guarantees — such as the right to life, personal integrity, freedom of expression, equality and non-discrimination, housing, health, of which the SNS is the ultimate symbol, education or the prohibition of unfair dismissals, among many others.
Contrary to what has been the most recent discourse, the CRP has not been inflexible over these five decades. On the contrary, it has been the subject of seven revisions since its approval, with more structural changes and other more limited ones, related to adherence to international treaties.
If in 1976 it is a fact that it established the transition to socialism, based on the nationalization of the main means of production and maintained the participation of the Armed Forces Movement (MFA) in the exercise of political power — through the Council of the Revolution, which had, among its functions, monitoring the constitutionality of laws —, the truth requires that it be noted that the deputies amended the Basic Law for the first time in 1982highlighting the extinction of the Revolutionary Council and the creation of the Constitutional Court and the State Council.
The basic idea of this first revision was, therefore, to reduce the ideological burden of the text, make the economic system more flexible and redefine the structures for the exercise of political power, ending the military dimension of the regime.
Em 1989there was a new constitutional revision, which abolished the principle of irreversibility of nationalizations directly carried out after April 25, 1974, with reprivatizations now being able to be carried out with approval by an absolute majority of deputies. It was also anticipated the possibility of referendums and references to the concept of “agrarian reform” were eliminated, now referring to “elimination of large estates and reorganization of smallholdings”.
Already the constitutional revisions of 1992 and 1997 They aimed, in essence, to adapt the constitutional text to the principles of the European Union, Maastricht and Amsterdam Treaties, enshrining other changes, such as those relating to the electoral capacity of foreign citizens, the creation of single-member constituencies in legislatures, the right to legislative initiative for citizens and the reinforcement of the exclusive legislative powers of the Assembly of the Republic, among others.
Em 2001the Constitution was amended again to allow the ratification of the Convention that created the International Criminal Court, changing the extradition rules and, just three years later, in 2004a new review was carried out to deepen the political-administrative autonomy of the autonomous regions of the Azores and Madeira, increasing the powers of the respective Legislative Assemblies and eliminating the position of “Minister of the Republic”, creating that of “Representative of the Republic”.
Regarding the latter, it is also important to note the introduction of greater rigor in the principle of term limits, particularly for holders of executive political positions, and the right to non-discrimination based on sexual orientation, in addition to clarifying rules regarding the validity, in the internal legal order, of European Union treaties and norms.
Having completed this journey and given the (still…) meager list of fundamental rights that I proceeded with, being able to add to these, others — such as the interdependence of sovereign bodies, the right to property and private initiative, freedom of social communication or movement and assembly —, it remains to be explained what they intend to change in the Fundamental Law.
The fact is that, with the exception of some expressions that are more symbolic than with practical content, given the revisions to which I referred, the changes that may now be proposed to a text that has resisted the pressure of the years very well can only go towards inhibiting the rights already mentioned.
It is well understandable that it has a markedly anti-democratic and xenophobic discourse, in some cases marked by barely disguised misogyny, the values of April deserve to be abolished in order to establish what they claim to be the so-called 4th Republic, doubting that this intended regime would enshrine many of the rights that we consider unquestionable, including freedom of expression.
But, for those who limit themselves to broadcasting a speech previously prepared by third parties, without even managing to list a single one of these aspects that deserves change, the question that arises is, after all, exactly what do they intend to change? Do you really think we have too many rights?
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1The approval of the Constitution was the result of 132 plenary sessionswhich took up almost 500 hours, and 327 sessions of the 12 Special Commissions created at the time.
2One of the most tense moments of this period was the siege of the Assembly, between the 12th and 13th of November 1975, in which thousands of protesters, largely construction workers, prevented deputies from leaving Parliament for 36 hours, as well as the head of Government, Pinheiro de Azevedo, which was in the prime minister’s official residence, adjacent to the São Bento Palace.
3On that night of April 2, 1976, Henrique de Barros closed the work of the Constituent Assembly by resuming his initial appeal, “only changing, as necessary, the tense of the verb, and without taking sides in the dispute over the conditions of constitutional revision”: “May we have known how to be worthy of ourselves, providing our homeland with a Constitution that, in essence, knows how to stand the test of time.”
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