The Constitutional Court declared unconstitutional a law approved by parliament last year that forced the government to review the teacher hiring regime, considering that it violates the principle of separation of powers.
The diploma in question, which results from a bill of the BE approved in May 2021 despite the vote against the PS, which did not yet have an absolute majority in the Assembly of the Republic (AR), foresaw the opening of a negotiation process with the union structures with a view to reviewing the hiring and mobility regime for basic and secondary education teachers.
However, the Government questioned the constitutionality of the diploma and, in August, asked the Constitutional Court (TC) to successively review the constitutionality of the law, understanding that the parliament had exceeded its powers by defining, for example, a schedule and a trading pace.
At the time, the President of the Government, António Costa, justified the decision by saying that it is not healthy for the institutions to “transfer to the Assembly of the Republic powers that are specific to the Government.”
In a ruling released this Monday, the TC supports the executive in declaring the diploma unconstitutional, since it considers that violates the “organic separation between different powers or organs of State sovereignty”that is to say, “an intolerable compression of the freedom or autonomy of the Government by the RA”, says the statement.
The decision of the Court is known, however, at a time when the Ministry of Education and the unions in the sector have already begun a negotiation process to review the hiring regime, with a first meeting in September and the second scheduled for the end of this month. .
The TC also evaluated, at the request of the Government, another Law approved at the same time by the parliament with a view to opening a contest for the extraordinary linking of teachers of the technical-artistic components of specialized artistic education for the exercise of functions in the areas of visual and audiovisual arts, in public educational establishments.
Regarding this diploma, the Court declared unconstitutional only the article that obliged the Government to open, until the end of the 2020/2021 academic year, a negotiation process for the approval of a specific regime for the selection and hiring of teachers in said areas. , presenting the same argument.
The decision on whether and when of the initiative to initiate negotiations with a view to altering the legal system (…) is a political option that one sovereign body cannot impose on another”, says the TC.
Regarding the article that provided for the opening of a contest for the extraordinary hiring of teachers within 30 days following the publication of the law on July 13 of last year, the TC considered that it does not violate the principle of separation of powers.
“Although the existence of a requirement from the RA to the Government for the opening of the tender is recognized, this tender is not opened by the regulation in question, and the intervention of the RA is perfectly legitimate, which does not constitute, in this way, an invasion of powers constitutionally reserved to the Government,” reads the statement.
By the way, two professors of specialized artistic education, or Minister of Education announced, on the sixth-fair, that the Government is preparing for the possibility of linking in the teaching career the specialized technicians of the António Arroio artistic schools, in Lisbon, and Soares dos Reis, in the port.
During a parliamentary debate on sectoral policy, João Costa explained that the objective is to “finally regularize the situation” of professionals who teach in these schools, but who are not integrated into the teaching career, being considered specialized technicians.
Source: Observadora
