The requirement for the judicial validation of the PJ’s action to block content classified as terrorist—first with the Public Prosecution Office, then, if necessary, with a judge—was proposed by the PSD, receiving favorable votes from Chega, an abstention from the PS, and opposition from the Liberal Initiative.
The PSD’s proposal aimed to resolve constitutional doubts in a government decree intending to transpose a European directive on combating the dissemination of terrorist content into national law.
In the initial version of the decree, the government assigned the PJ the power to block or suppress the dissemination of content deemed terrorist on the internet, without prior judicial intervention.
By consensus, in a previous meeting of the Constitutional Affairs Committee, deputies agreed to introduce changes to subject the PJ’s intervention of blocking to validation by a judicial authority, while allowing an exception for urgent actions classified by the police.
Opinions from the Superior Council of Magistracy, the Superior Council of the Public Prosecution, and the National Commission for Data Protection all highlighted concerns about constitutional doubts aroused by the government assigning blocking and suppression powers to a police body without prior judicial intervention.
On behalf of the PSD, deputies António Rodrigues and Paulo Marcelo have warned that the country urgently needs to transpose into national legislation a law enabling the PJ to combat the spread of messages with terrorist content, but faced with constitutional doubts, they indicated that the social democrats were open to “improvements.”
The former leader of the Liberal Initiative, Rui Rocha, expressed similar concerns regarding the precariousness of state authority control in matters of freedom of expression and the right to information.
“We understand the security threats, but the state’s adaptation to the new reality of terrorism cannot exclude judicial oversight. These are challenging times for freedom of expression. As a liberal, I always operate from a principle of state skepticism,” he explained.
