Marcelo must return to OE

The Constitution is exhaustive. “The Budget is prepared in accordance with the main planning options and taking into account the obligations derived from the law or the contract”, prescribes paragraph 2 of article 105 of the fundamental law. That is, the BE proposal – approved with the votes of PSD, PCP, PAN, Chega and Joacine Katar Moreira in the area of ​​specialty – which prohibits further transfers from the Resolution Fund to the New Bank, violating the contract signed by the State at the time. The sale of this financial institution to the Lone Star fund will also violate that constitutional rule. Given this fact, SOL confronted the Presidency of the Republic, which clarified that Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa “will only make a decision after reading” the diploma.

The State Budget law for 2021 will only arrive in Belém days after its approval in a final global vote. Once the diploma is received, the President can limit himself to promulgating it, but can also decide on the political veto and return it to the Assembly of the Republic or send it to the Constitutional Court for preventive inspection of constitutionality.

In this first term in office, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, renowned professor of Constitutional Law, has made very little use of sending diplomas to the Constitutional Court. This makes it more likely that, given the urgency of the entry into force of the State Budget, the diploma will be returned to the Assembly of the Republic if it understands that this (and other norms) are affected by unconstitutionality.

On the other hand, if Marcelo limits himself to enactment, the Government (or a group of PS parliamentarians) can always provoke successive inspections of that norm before the Constitutional Court.

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