The Commission for Citizenship and Gender Equality (CIG) has criticized the rules of a competition for Public Prosecutor’s Office magistrates as “coercive and legally unacceptable” and filed a complaint with the Commission for Equality, according to Diário de Notícias.
“It is unacceptable for magistrates to be excluded based on potential scenarios and future personal decisions, particularly related to parenthood, or to be coerced into postponing motherhood and fatherhood, which are eminent social values under Article 68(2) of the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic,” states the complaint submitted by CIG to the Commission for Equality in Labor and Employment (CITE), as accessed by DN.
The issue concerns rules established on June 4 by the Higher Council of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, led by Attorney General Amadeu Guerra.
CIG argues that the rules exclude candidates “who predictably will be in a situation of active duty reduction or prolonged absence exceeding 60 days between September 1, 2025, and August 31, 2026.”
In the complaint filed on Friday, CIG maintains that the rules are “coercive and legally unacceptable according to constitutional principles of equality and protection of parenthood.”
CIG also raises concerns regarding adherence to the principle of equality and non-discrimination (Article 13 of the Constitution), emphasizing that the contest rules have “semantic indeterminacy, omission of relevant distinctions (illness, pregnancy, parental leave), and insufficient normative density.”
CIG believes this contradicts fundamental principles of legislative quality, such as clarity, precision, predictability, coherence, and necessary conformity with the legal system, prompting it to request CITE to issue an opinion, which is generally binding and can only be overridden by courts.
CITE President Carla Tavares, when contacted by DN, stated that she has not yet reviewed the complaint against the Attorney General’s Office and explained that “CITE’s opinions have typically been understood to apply only to employment relationships involving dependency.” She further noted that “judicial magistrates do not fall under this category, as their relationship is not one of employment, and the Public Prosecutor’s Office is not the employer of prosecutorial magistrates. Thus, any opinion issued by CITE would face an effective question of applicability,” she added, assuring that “this situation should not be met with silence from CITE.”
This topic has also prompted a reaction from the Union of Public Prosecutor’s Office Magistrates (SMMP), with 1,200 prosecutors signing an open letter urging the Higher Council of the Public Prosecutor’s Office to annul the regulation.
Prosecutor Alexandra Chicharo das Neves, representing the union, informed DN that a preliminary injunction is being prepared for the administrative courts to prevent the rules from taking effect.
