The president of the Assembly of the Republic will ask the Constitutional Affairs Commission for an opinion on a draft resolution by Chega that seeks to condemn his conduct, noting that he has “very deep and very complex doubts.”

In a five-page dispatch, dated this Tuesday, the president of parliament indicates that he asked the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, Rights, Freedoms and Guarantees “to issue an opinion on constitutional and regulatory compliance” with the Chega resolution project, “namely for purposes of admissibility.

And it justifies this decision “because of the doubts raised by the services of the Assembly, but also because of the very deep and very complex doubts” raised “at the ethical-political level, not because of this specific draft resolution, but because of the precedent that may to create”.

Augusto Santos Silva points out that the note prepared by the parliament services indicates that “the form of the project is not adequate in relation to its content, since the form of resolution is subject, in constitutional terms, to a principle of competence (of the Assembly of the Republic), which does not seem to happen in this situation”.

The opinion also identifies “the various possibilities provided by the Regulations of the Assembly of the Republic to syndicate the decisions of the President.”

In the order, delivered to the journalists by Chega, the second figure of the State argues that “the number one rule for the functioning of the Assembly is total freedom of expression” and that “under regimental terms, only the degradation generated by the injury or offense may justify the intervention of the president with whom he is taking the floor”.

However, it underlines that no decision of the president of parliament “with effects on the organization and dynamics of parliamentary work is not unionizable and unappealable; on the contrary, they can all be appealed before the plenary session, which is sovereign in the decision”.

“It is taking into account this regimental framework that we must seriously consider the legitimacy and the consequences of accepting that from now on resolutions are discussed and voted on to institutionalize any ‘censorship’ of any ‘conduct,'” he warns, asking if “we should even walk that path.”

This is the parliament that we want, that in addition to criticism, protests and counter-protests, requests for clarifications and answers, defenses of honor and satisfaction, that is, of the normal democratic parliamentary dialectic, we now admit exercises of appreciation and condemnation whose terminology evokes historical practices or contemporary ones typical of dictatorships, against which liberal democracies have always risen up?, of dubious constitutional and regimental conformity”.

The agenda of the meeting of the first commission, on Wednesday, already includes the designation of the rapporteur for the preparation of the opinion on the “constitutional and regimental adequacy” of Chega’s draft resolution.

Although a decision has not yet been made, Chega considers that the request for an opinion on the admission of the draft resolution constitutes a “new veto” and indicates that this is “one more issue to add to the list that the party leader will carry.” . “to the audience” that he requested from the President of the Republic and that is scheduled for Friday afternoon.

On Sunday, Chega announced the delivery to parliament of a draft resolution that seeks to condemn the conduct of the President of the Assembly of the Republic, for lack of impartiality and exemption in the exercise of his position.

Days later, on Thursday, the last plenary session before the work stoppage for vacations, the deputies left the chamber in protest at the conduct of the work of Augusto Santos Silva, after he commented on an intervention by the party leader on foreigners in Portugal. . .

Speaking to journalists shortly after, André Ventura admitted that leaving the plenary in protest against the speaker of parliament was decided “in a reflexive way”.

Admission of the draft resolution voted in September

The parliamentary commission for Constitutional Affairs, Rights, Freedoms and Guarantees will evaluate in September the admission of the draft resolution Chega that seeks to censor the President of the Assembly of the Republic. The information was provided to the Lusa agency by the president of the Constitutional Affairs Commission, the social democrat Fernando Negrão.

This Wednesday, the Constitutional Affairs Commission will appoint the rapporteur for the opinion “on the constitutional and regimental adequacy” of Chega’s draft resolution, for the purposes of its admissibility.

The debate and vote on this opinion will take place in September, after the parliamentary break.