The President of the Assembly of the Republic will decide if two draft bills by Chega party, on loss of nationality and chemical castration, that "failed" in the Constitutional Affairs committee on 24 March, will be debated.
The Committee on Constitutional Affairs, Rights, Freedoms and Guarantees discussed on 24 March, for almost two hours, the opinions on André Ventura's party projects and, in both cases, concluded that they are unconstitutional and, therefore, not admissible.
Ferro Rodrigues, like what he had already done in relation to other Chega bills in which he had constitutional doubts, asked the commission for an opinion on whether the constitutionality of the projects to be admitted.
The first to be discussed was the law to remove nationality from naturalized citizens condemn because of crimes with sentences of more than five years or that "offend national symbols", but that an opinion of the former Minister of Internal Administration and deputy of Constança Urbano PS de Sousa concludes to violate the Constitution, on the principle of equality, in Articles 3 and 26, among others.
In other words, citizens with Portuguese nationality have all the same rights, with the exception of the right to run for President of the Republic to citizens by naturalization.
"The right to nationality is a right to have rights", summarized Constança Urbano de Sousa, for whom the Constitution "does not distinguish between Portuguese because of the way they acquired nationality".
André Ventura, from Chega, argued that the loss of nationality is for cases in which citizens are condemned to sentences greater than five, for serious crimes, such as drug trafficking, sexual crimes or money laundering, or even those who "pass on life offending Portugal and its historical memory".
And he stated that several countries in Europe, such as Switzerland or the United Kingdom, remove their nationality, to which Constança Urbano de Sousa replied that these states do not have an article in the Constitution that states: "Citizenship deprivation and restrictions on civil capacity they can only take place in the cases and terms provided for by law, and cannot be based on political motives".
Most of the parties agreed with the opinion, although BE and CDS have again raised reservations that the commission is conducting a constitutional scrutiny prior to legislative initiatives.
If Catarina Rocha Ferreira, of the PSD, agreed that the bill has unconstitutionalities and that the Constitution "protects citizenship", to which the citizen "cannot be deprived for political reasons, opinions, even if unpatriotic", Telmo Correia, of the CDS admitted that "it would not shock you" to discuss the matter, but in an extreme case.
This "extreme case" would be if a citizen who had naturalized Portuguese, was accused and convicted of terrorism.
In the end, the opinion was approved by a large majority, with the votes of PS, PSD, PCP, BE, Joacine Katar Moreira and registered the votes against Chega and CDS.
The next opinion was on Chega's draft law on chemical castration for repeat offenders in cases of rape, which is disproportionate and "results in a cruel, degrading and inhuman penalty" and, again, was considered unconstitutional.
The debate was prolonged, almost an hour, and started with the conclusions of the opinion, by the unconstitutionality, of Joacine Katar-Moreira, that “the accessory penalty of chemical castration, to be applied to the aggressor without his consent, not only it does not constitute a proportional or necessary sanction "for" the realization of the purposes of Criminal Law, whether for general prevention or for special prevention".
Furthermore, it is "manifestly hurtful to the dignity of the human person" and "results in a cruel, degrading and inhuman penalty" and, according to Joacine, "differentiating citizens from criminals is incompatible with a democratic rule of law".