The proposed criterion for revoking Portuguese nationality involves prisoners serving sentences exceeding five years who acquired Portuguese citizenship within the last decade. This suggestion by the government aims to apply an additional penalty of nationality loss, aligning with the amendments to the nationality law, which has now moved to the specialty stage.
A spokesperson from the Ministry of Justice clarified that current justice statistics do not distinguish between native and naturalized Portuguese citizens, as data sources rely on court decisions that do not make this distinction.
The Directorate-General for Reintegration and Prison Services (DGRSP) further noted that their statistics focus solely on sentence lengths and prisoner nationalities, lacking information on when individuals obtained their citizenship.
The government seeks to empower judges to impose nationality loss as an additional penalty for naturalized citizens of less than 10 years who commit severe crimes warranting prison sentences exceeding five years.
This amendment to the nationality law was announced by the Minister for the Presidency, António Leitão Amaro, during a press briefing following last week’s Council of Ministers meeting.
Minister Leitão Amaro emphasized that this penalty would only be applicable as an accessory sanction, determined by a judge for particularly grave crimes.
He specified that it would apply not only in abstract but in concrete cases where a judge has imposed a prison sentence of five years or more. This includes crimes against the state such as espionage, terrorism, and treason, as well as severe offenses against individuals, including homicide, rape, serious physical assault, and extreme acts of violence and aggression against people and their freedoms within national territory.
