The so-called preventive inquiry is illegal and unconstitutional, as it infringes on rights, freedoms, and guarantees enshrined in the constitution, state Wladimiro Brito, Francisco Teixeira da Mota, Ricardo Sá Fernandes, and Pedro Miguel Freitas in a letter dated December 5. They emphasize the need to end this abusive practice, which raises public alarm about the actions of the Public Prosecutor’s Office.
They argue that the situation concerns the requirement under the Penal Procedure Code that any person suspected of an offense must be made a named suspect to ensure their defense rights, including appointing a lawyer and participating in the process.
“As it stands, none of these rights are guaranteed in the preventive inquiry, which has been initiated and continued in violation of the defense guarantees for the citizens subjected to it,” remind the letter’s signatories.
Brito, Teixeira da Mota, Sá Fernandes, and Freitas note that “preventive actions” provided for in Law 36/94, which has been cited by the Public Prosecutor’s Office, differ from the “administrative practice carried out by the Public Prosecutor’s Office, in which the suspect is not even informed of the results of this practice.”
“In Portuguese law, there is no provision for investigating specific suspicions against citizens outside the framework of a criminal inquiry as outlined in the Penal Procedure Code,” summarizes Ricardo Sá Fernandes, affirming his belief that “the preventive inquiry directed at the prime minister currently underway lacks a legal basis.”
“This exposition is not against the prime minister; it is even in his defense. Above all, it is in defense of the rule of law,” he concludes.
In their letter to the Ombudsman, reported today by the weekly Expresso and accessed by Lusa, the four legal experts also request that the Attorney General’s Office (PGR) be asked to identify the justification for using what they term a preventive inquiry and the process led by Amadeu Guerra as a preventive investigation.
In March, the attorney general announced the initiation of a preventive investigation to assess whether there are grounds to proceed with a criminal inquiry into the Spinumviva case, a company belonging to Luís Montenegro’s family.
On Tuesday, Amadeu Guerra said he hopes the procedure will be concluded by the start of the Christmas judicial recess on December 22.
Lusa contacted the PGR this morning with the authors’ claim of unconstitutionality sent to the Ombudsman and is awaiting a response.
