“The decisions of the CTED (Commission of Transparency and Statute of Deputies) on this matter cannot be appealed to the President [of the Assembly of the Republic], nor can he substitute the Commission regarding its assessment of the admissibility or merit of the submitted requests,” writes José Pedro Aguiar-Branco in his order, dated Thursday, which the Lusa agency accessed.
Last week, Pedro Frazão requested the Transparency Commission to initiate an inquiry against Hugo Soares for incidents allegedly occurring in the plenary session of September 17. He complained that the social-democratic parliamentary leader had promised him “beatings.”
However, in the Transparency Commission, the PSD and PS voted against the admissibility of this complaint, based on the minutes of the aforementioned plenary session, in which they concluded that Hugo Soares promised “addresses” and not “beatings” to Pedro Frazão.
Faced with this decision, the Chega deputy appealed to the President of the Assembly of the Republic, arguing that the minutes of the plenary session of September 17 “do not accurately reflect the events there, omitting the content of protests and counter-protests that he classifies as intimidating and harsh, allegedly constituting threats of physical aggression.”
However, in his order, José Pedro Aguiar-Branco warns that the president of the parliament’s competence “is limited to initiating the inquiry procedure, without having any power to control, direct, or substitute the CTED in the exercise of its functions.”
In this sense, the appeal lodged by Pedro Frazão, aiming for the President of the Assembly of the Republic “to replace the CTED’s decision with another determining the opening of an inquiry, finds no legal support, as it translates into an action that exceeds the powers legally conferred on the President of the Assembly of the Republic.”
In his order, José Pedro Aguiar-Branco emphasizes the following principle: “The commission acts with full autonomy and functional independence, not subject to instructions or any form of oversight or hierarchical substitution by the President of the Assembly of the Republic.”
In other words, the commission’s decision on the non-admissibility of Pedro Frazão’s request “cannot be appealed to the President of the Assembly of the Republic, who has no competence to alter or reverse commission decisions in this domain.”
José Pedro Aguiar-Branco also makes another observation, this one about the parliament’s conditions, pointing out that “it has been repeatedly mentioned that the acoustic conditions of the session room themselves do not facilitate the hearing of asides and the identification of their authors, especially by the members of the Board.”
“The faithful and complete written account of what happens in each plenary session (…) is made using audio and video records and includes the inserts of parliamentary reaction that are audible and identifiable,” he notes.
In the specific case of the Chega leader’s complaint, it was concluded in parliament that “between the initial version (made available on September 22 on the intranet) and the version with final revision (made available for public reading on the Assembly of the Republic’s website on September 29) there is no difference regarding the passage concerning deputies Hugo Soares and Pedro Frazão.”
“Additionally, the analysis of the audio file used to transcribe the Diary and the video of the session available on the Parliament Channel reveals no evidence of a lack of authenticity or reliability concerning the transcription,” it adds.
