The criticisms were voiced by the Socialist Party’s parliamentary leader, Eurico Brilhante Dias, in statements to journalists following the parliament’s approval of these resolutions. He described the events in the chamber as “a disgrace to the Assembly of the Republic.”
“It represents the degradation of an institution that tells the Portuguese people it can legislate, confer urgency to critically important norms affecting the lives of Portuguese citizens, norms as vital as nationality and foreigner’s law, without respecting the law and particularly without respecting mandatory consultations stipulated by law,” he criticized.
The socialist also regretted that the president of the Assembly did not “recognize the gravity of the moment” and failed “to at least alert to a blatant violation of the law.”
“Constitutional matters will surely be resolved later, but today the parliament decided to proceed with a legislative process, violating the law and not adhering to the obligatory consultations as demanded by law,” he accused.
According to Brilhante Dias, there was “a coalition” between the PSD and Chega to “advance a process that, without any reliability and violating the law, ends up concluding a legislative process in this chamber.”
“The PS remains available to work on fundamental issues, but it cannot, and never will, contribute to the degradation of the Assembly of the Republic and the disgrace of this parliament,” he assured.
The parliament today approved resolutions to expedite the government’s proposed changes to nationality and immigration laws and to establish the PSP’s Foreigners and Borders Unit.
These deliberations, submitted for plenary consideration and voting by the president of the Assembly of the Republic, José Pedro Aguiar-Branco, sparked a tense debate between left and right parliamentary groups.
The urgency process for the government’s nationality law revision proposal—whose debate the PSD aims to conclude by September—faced opposition from all left-wing parties (PS, Livre, PCP, Bloco de Esquerda, JPP, and PAN) and from all right-wing parties (PSD, Chega, Iniciativa Liberal, and CDS).
