National Assembly’s 15th parliamentary committee met today, where members from PSD, PS, Chega, IL, and Livre unified in drafting a communication to the Transparency Entity. They expressed disagreement with a recent decision and warned that restricting parliamentary advisers’ access to the register of interests could jeopardize the committee’s timely work and its function of verifying these registers.
The proposal for this initiative came from Rui Paulo Sousa (Chega), the parliamentary committee’s president.
A communication accessed by Lusa reveals that the Transparency Entity informed the parliamentary committee on Transparency that contrary to previous years, only deputies would be granted access to its electronic platform. This platform is used for monitoring the register of interests of deputies and government members, thus excluding parliamentary advisers.
In its message to parliament, the Transparency Entity cited the law governing the duties of political office holders and senior officials to justify denying access to parliamentary advisers.
“The parliamentary committee responsible for applying the Statute of Deputies can access in real time the declarations of interest submitted by deputies to the Assembly of the Republic and government members,” the Transparency Entity stated, referencing legislation.
During the meeting, Hugo Carneiro (PSD), coordinator of the Interest Register Working Group, completely disagreed with the Transparency Entity’s decision. He noted that parliamentary group advisers are “appointed under the law” and “are supported within the functioning of the Assembly of the Republic.”
“I believe it should be communicated to the Transparency Entity that denying lawful access to staff and advisers might heavily impact the working group’s ability to assess the interest registers,” he stated.
Socialist deputy Pedro Delgado Alves highlighted that in the last legislative term, advisers and staff had access to the platform and emphasized that “the rationale for this change is unclear.”
The PS deputy noted that employees of the Entity can access the interest registers and claimed that the electronic platform for consulting politicians’ interest registers improved thanks to inputs from parliamentary advisers.
