The proposal to create the new holiday was unanimously approved in the plenary session of the Legislative Assembly of Madeira on 27 November and sent for consideration by the Republic's representative for the region, Ireneu Barreto, on 3 December.

After the promulgation, the advisory judge sent a letter to the island parliament in which he recalls that this “is not the first occasion on which the Legislative Assembly of the Autonomous Region has created a regional holiday”.

Ireneu Barreto mentions that “since 1979, the 1st of July has been designated Region Day” and, since “the end of 2002, the 26th of December has also been made a regional holiday”.

The Autonomy Day holiday aims to mark the constitutional consecration of regional autonomies.

On 1st July the region celebrates the date that evokes the discovery of the island of Madeira and “on 2nd April it is intended to highlight and mark the achievement of autonomy, as an aspiration of centuries of the Madeiran people, finally translated into the Portuguese constitutional text, highlighting its importance for the profound political, economic, social, cultural and sporting transformations of Madeira and Porto Santo”, argued the Commission for the Celebrations of 50 years of Autonomy.

The commission's proposal, approved in plenary, was signed by all parties with seats in parliament.

The date was chosen because it was in the plenary session of 2 April 1976, that the new Constitution of the Portuguese Republic was approved and decreed, establishing for the first time that "the archipelagos of the Azores and Madeira constitute autonomous regions endowed with political-administrative statutes and self-government bodies".