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Exchanged for boys, the answer that Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa wanted to leave António Costa on Saturday of Hallelujah was simple. While he, President of the Republic, when promulgating the reinforcement of social support that so irritated the Government, limited himself to being consistent in the “flexible” understanding that, “to avoid crises”, composed of several laws, the Prime Minister is that, “this time, he understood that it does not make sense to have such a generous, flexible and open interpretation as a year ago” in the Supplementary Budget.
Marcelo took advantage of a visit to a social institution to respond to the Government, commentators and “fellow lawyers, some of my former students or assistants”, who spent the last days criticizing him for having promulgated three presumably unconstitutional diplomas, explaining what the understanding of his powers in relation to the evaluation of laws.
“To avoid a crisis, I decided to make use of my powers, that is, of the laws, to consider what may weigh at all times to promulgate, veto or send them to the TC,” explained the president, assuming that in certain contexts it had as a priority ” save the laws “to” avoid crises and problems. And he insisted on remembering that with this António Costa has won.
“I already saved a State Budget that had more expenses than income and it was easy to kill it,” the president recalled, “I kept it saying that he promulgated it taking into account the income.” But Marcelo took more ammunition to respond to the head of government, with whom in the last week he entered into an open divergence regarding the three diplomas approved by the oppositions and who reinforced support for families and companies.
In addition to having found that the three laws have “positive” effects, the President explained that the decision to enact them also focused on the “preventive salvation of the next State Budget”, which will always depend, since the Government is a minority, with the support from opposition parties. In other words, Marcelo shows his political commitment to dialogue between all parties, with a view to guaranteeing possible stability. And he was unraveling examples to remember that he always did.
“Another Budget proposed a series of measures that were strictly on the border between what the Government can do and what the Assembly of the Republic can do,” he continued, “and could have sent it to the Constitutional Court but I thought: no, that paralyzes everything” . And the examples did not end there.
The President recalled that “last year, because we understood that we were living in a period of crisis, there were several laws of the Assembly of the Republic that followed government decrees that would potentially increase expenses and reduce income – and I say potentially because it would depend on the request let the Government do. – And I saved them, “he insisted.” I could have said ‘I kill them’, but I understood that it was a period of crisis and that’s why I enacted them. “
This was the beginning for Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa to land today: “It was exactly what I did now,” he said, considering that “the crisis in January and February this year was worse than last year,” which, he explained, It led him to think that being “generally positive measures”, they should be enacted. As for the constitutional doubts, which António Costa had already warned him to understand that this time they were real, Marcelo assumes that he understood the opposite, remaining faithful to the flexibility he used in previous cases. If anyone changed, it was the prime minister.
Visibly already speaking to the legal community that, globally, criticized him for enacting laws that almost all say violate the brake law, the president explained his point of view: “I understood that it was possible to save them,” based on an “understanding of their constitutionality. , which is: they fall within the general limits of the Budget, depending on what the Government comes to do ”.
This is Marcelo’s ‘opinion’ for the judges of the Constitutional Court, who will say of his justice after the Prime Minister sent them the three diplomas in question. But the president warns that it does not change.
“I will continue to do so”, “I was chosen to avoid crisis”
“I will continue to do so, as long as I understand that this does not violate the Constitution,” said the President, recalling that “there will be in the next five years, with this Government or with another, with this Prime Minister or with another (because in the meantime there are legislative elections), who make several of these elections ”.
“There are cases in which another attitude will be justified” and Marcelo anticipates that he can stop the laws, as he remembers having already happened, but he also does not dispense with being flexible in the interpretation of diplomas provided that “he understands that it is easy to find an interpretation consistent the Constitution “. Another message for Costa: for the PR, the power to decide at all times and with total freedom what to do with a diploma is intact and will not be conditioned by attempts to limit it with more dogmatically legal points of view.
“The President is more than a professor of Law,” he stressed, insisting that it corresponds to him “to arbitrate and weigh at all times the different values” of the Government, Parliament, the parties, and the country, and “the Constitution as well. establishes Social Justice values ”.
It was a kind of conference for politicians, commentators – “I have been, but I am no longer” – but also for the “always legal comrades”, to whom Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa clearly wanted to justify the positions he has defended in relation to legislative production of two governments of António Costa and the opposition in Parliament.
Aware that his understanding of the constitutionality of the three diplomas in question here has only one gore to pass in the Constitutional Court, Marcelo tried to devalue António Costa’s decision to appeal to the TC, recalling that “the Prime Minister said that the diplomas will be in force until the response of the Court arrives “. That is, support will be given and it will no longer be withdrawn.
Insisting that “there is no crisis” and that avoiding them will continue to be his number one priority, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa concluded “that two crises are enough for us, the pandemic and the economic and social one. And creating another would not make sense.” The convivial atmosphere is that, it turns out, he has had better days.
