The Liberal Initiative has a defined position regarding the lists for external bodies and validates Chega’s recommendation to forward judge Luís Brites Lameiras to the Constitutional Court. “We look at the competence, at the names and, for us, the names on the list for the Constitutional Court do not raise any type of safeguard. There are no reservations, it has recognized merit. The same for judges appointed by the PSD“, says Mário Amorim Lopes, parliamentary leader of the Liberal Initiative, to Diário de Notícias, noting that the Court cannot have “polarizations” and that judges “cannot do politics themselves” – therefore relativizing the fact that there can be three nominations via the right wing of Parliament.
Brites Lameiras is a judge, graduated from the Faculty of Law of the University of Lisbon, having worked in the courts of Appeal in Lisbon and Porto, in addition to being chief of staff to the president of the Supreme Court of Justice, between 2013 and 2018.
Thus, the parliamentary agreement qualified on the right is closer to a definition. Livre had challenged IL to a partnership that would make choices “made by party card” in “closed door agreements” unfeasible and, on the contrary, give priority to the 1st Commission, so that “all parties” could present proposals of names of judges for the Constitutional Court. IL refused the proposed partnership and, despite having previously rejected other names made public as being those indicated by Chega, it evaluates this choice of judge Brites Lameiras positively.
The PS and PSD agreed to postpone the parliamentary elections to replace the missing judges for the Constitutional Court until the beginning of May, a seventh postponement in a situation that has been dragging on for a long time. However, The PS will, it seems, only have a fourth name, but this one to replace José João Abrantes, who was nominated by the party. Eurico Brilhante Dias, to DN, said that he was only negotiating for the “three existing vacancies”, which, if so, will not be confirmed.
“The PS needs to be cooperative and have a sense of State, that it understands that things have changed in Portugal, that it gets used to this reality and that it does not use an attempt to benefit the party”, says Amorim Lopes, who recognizes that in the PSD itself there is a more negotiating position: “The Government realized that there is a desire among people to see reforms, and they are looking at us as a party that can be just that, reformist.”
As for the Ombudsman’s Office, the PS appointed Tiago Antunes on Tuesday, while the PSD proposed the reappointment of Luís Pais Antunes as president of the Economic and Social Council (CES), in an understanding between the parties. For the Council of State, the PS presents its own list, headed by the president of the PS, Carlos César, who agreed to join it after José Luís Carneiro abdicated that position.
A The election of the five names proposed by the Legislative Assembly for the Council of State will be held on April 16by secret vote, according to the principle of proportional representation, which will guarantee the election of a socialist. Leonor Beleza, Carlos Moedas and Pedro Duarte, from PSD, and André Ventura, from Chega, should complete the list.
Leave a Reply