In the parliamentary debate on proposals to amend the budget for increasing funds to the Constitutional Court, PSD deputy Hugo Carneiro described as “very serious” the court’s decision “to enter the arena of political-party debate,” pointing out that in 2024, this body did not fully execute its budget.
Hugo Carneiro referred to a recent parliamentary hearing where the president of the Constitutional Court, José João Abrantes, requested an increase in the allocated funds by about 1.6 million euros.
“And the excuse we heard in the hearing is that it was necessary to also strengthen the Entity of Accounts and the Entity for Transparency. And what do we see in the court’s execution? That the budget of these two entities is set solely by the Constitutional Court’s decision. And what did the Constitutional Court decide? It decided to withdraw funds from these two entities. It wasn’t the government, it wasn’t the parliament,” he added.
The parliamentarian argued that deputies are “called to make a decision that has to go beyond politically correct” and that this is a matter of political choices, ensuring that the government “if necessary would never fail any court in the country.”
Socialist deputy Pedro Delgado Alves announced that the PS will support and enable the proposals presented by Chega and PAN for the increase in line with what was requested by the Constitutional Court, arguing that the judges of Palácio Ratton explained “objectively and clearly” the reasons for this funding increase.
In the parliamentary hearing, José João Abrantes said he wrote to the Prime Minister in August to alert him to the absolute necessity of increasing the budget allocation, but Luís Montenegro only responded on November 10 without providing assurances. On the hearing day, Minister António Leitão Amaro deferred any potential budget changes to the Assembly of the Republic.
With PSD and CDS-PP opposing this increase, citing management failures, PS and Chega, along with the rest of the left, ensured they are ready to form the necessary majority to approve the budget increase for Palácio Ratton.
