This stance was articulated at a press conference by the vice-president of the socialist party bench, Pedro Delgado Alves, after the parliamentary leader of the PS, Eurico Brilhante Dias, announced that his party has requested the Constitutional Court (TC) conduct a preventive review of the decree amending the Nationality Law and another that proposes the loss of nationality as an accessory penalty.
During the press conference, Pedro Delgado Alves initially addressed the decree that amends the Penal Code to create the accessory penalty of loss of nationality, applicable to nationals of another State who are sentenced to an effective prison term of four years or more within ten years following Portuguese nationality acquisition.
The vice-president of the socialist bench indicated that this decree, with a single article, poses issues regarding the “violation of the principle of equality and universality,” as well as the “violation of the principle of proportionality and the rule prohibiting perpetual or indefinite penalties.”
Regarding the changes to the Nationality Law, according to Pedro Delgado Alves, the PS identifies the presence of seven unconstitutional norms, one of which lacks any transitional provision in the decree approved in parliament.
In the decree emanating from the Assembly of the Republic, backed by the PSD, Chega, CDS, Iniciativa Liberal, and JPP, it is stipulated that the new Nationality Law “comes into force the day following its publication.”
“We notice a breach of trust protection regarding the alteration of the legal residence duration counting rules, the absence of a transitional regime, and the revocation of regimes protecting the acquisition of nationality by stateless individuals or minors. This trust protection principle is combined with the protection of minors, on the one side, and with the situation of stateless individuals, on the other,” he highlighted.
Furthermore, according to Pedro Delgado Alves, in the decree amending the Nationality Law, originating from a government proposal, the option of lowering the threshold to a two-year prison sentence to prevent a citizen’s naturalization is disproportionate.
With this new revision, the impediment for acquiring Portuguese nationality is now set as a sentence of two years or more, instead of three years or more.
In one of the two requests submitted to the Constitutional Court, the PS also points to an indeterminacy in the rules concerning opposition to nationality.
“We are facing restrictive laws of rights, freedoms, and guarantees, besides penal laws. A sanctioning norm must be determinable. Moreover, regarding nationality consolidation, there is a projection of effects on third parties concerning acts they did not commit,” he noted.
Apart from the legal residence duration, which removes the counting initiation from the moment the respective request is made, additional conditions for foreign nationals’ naturalization are introduced, aside from language knowledge already required by law.
The decree now stipulates that Portuguese nationality is only attributed to applicants who “prove, through a test or certificate, sufficient knowledge of the Portuguese language and culture, history, and national symbols,” and who also “possess the capacity to ensure their subsistence,” also having to sufficiently know “the fundamental rights and duties” and declare “solemn adherence to the fundamental principles of the democratic rule of law.”
[Updated at 19:30]
