The question was raised by the President of the Transparency Commission, Chega MP Rui Paulo Sousa, who queried other commission members about the possibility of a request to lift the immunity of a certain deputy, whose party or name was not identified, being approved in the plenary session on the 17th, prior to the summer recess.
For the opinion to be approved in that plenary, without being postponed to September, according to the commission’s president, the deputy involved would need to respond to the court’s request to lift his parliamentary immunity within three days instead of the usual ten days.
Rui Paulo Sousa noted that in urgent procedures, there is a provision for the response period to be only three days for deputies to pronounce on the request for lifting immunity.
In such cases, the response given by a deputy involved always has informational effects, though it helps to solidify the subsequent decision made by the commission and, ultimately, the plenary assembly of the Republic.
In response to this, Hugo Carneiro first pointed out that in criminal proceedings, “all prescription periods are suspended” from the moment the request to lift immunity enters parliament.
“We will not override the ten-day period for the hearing of the involved deputy,” stated the vice-president of the Social Democratic bench, whose stance gained support when the commission president, Rui Paulo Sousa, confirmed that the process concerning the deputy in question “is not accompanied by an urgent request from the court.”
At today’s Transparency Commission meeting, a proposal by Social Democrat deputy Andreia Neto was unanimously approved, allowing Livre deputy Jorge Pinto to travel to Brazil soon to participate in an academic event, with expenses covered by the conference organizers.
On this matter, PS vice-president Pedro Delgado Alves noted that the invitation to the deputy was made in his capacity as an academic and affirmed that the unanimously approved proposal “is on the right track” and should now set the norm, as it was not always the case in the past.
Today, Social Democrat Hugo Carneiro was appointed coordinator of the working group on the registration of interests, also including Barreira Soares (Chega), Pedro Delgado Alves (PS), Rui Rocha (Iniciativa Liberal), and Paulo Muacho (Livre).
