The bill submitted by Deputy Mariana Mortágua, aimed at allowing anyone to report a rape crime and not just the victim, received support from PSD, Chega, IL, Livre, CDS-PP, BE, PAN, and JPP, as well as twelve PS parliamentarians, including former Secretary-General Pedro Nuno Santos, while PS and PCP parliamentary groups abstained.
Another bill, presented by PAN with the same objective, was also approved with abstention from PS, IL, and PCP and votes in favor from the other benches and socialist deputies.
The proposal from Chega, which also seeks to amend the criminal law to make rape a public crime, was passed with abstentions from PS, IL, Livre, PCP, and JPP and support from the remaining benches.
With the same goal, Livre presented a bill that was approved with PS and PCP abstaining and votes in favor from the other benches and the same socialist deputies, while a PAN bill to extend the statute of limitations for crimes was rejected.
In a video released after the vote, the Socialist parliamentary leader justified PS’s abstention on these initiatives by stating that, by making rape a public crime, the “Public Prosecutor’s Office stops consulting the victim to proceed.”
“The automatic nature of making this crime public excludes the victim’s participation and we cannot leave the victim, who suffered a horrific crime, out of the criminal process,” emphasized Eurico Brilhante Dias.
“It is possible to go further” in the relationship between the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the victim, but it is also “necessary to work on the details,” argued the PS parliamentary leader.
The approved bills, now forwarded to the committee, imply changes to the Penal Code and Criminal Procedure Code, as well as the victim’s statute.
