A country of broken doors

Last April, it was reported that the number of immigrants had doubled in three years, surpassing 1.5 million people, or 14.5% of the population. In June, the Deputy Secretary of State for Immigration announced that he had notified 40,000 illegal immigrants to leave the country, but that their departures were voluntary and he lacked the resources to expel them. A few days ago, 38 more illegal immigrants landed on a beach on the western coast of the Algarve. They were said to have arrived on a wooden boat from Morocco, a claim that is highly unreliable, as it would have involved a 100-km journey across the open sea, a very difficult feat on such a vessel. After the immigrants were heard in court, they were given 20 days to leave the country, and were placed in a detention center without any conditions and under the surveillance of the National Republican Guard (GNR).

This entire situation is the result of the disastrous immigration policies of António Costa's administration, beginning with the expression of interest, a veritable invitation to irregular immigration, and culminating in the abolition of the SEF (National Service for the Elimination of Illegal Immigration), which left police control of Portugal's borders in limbo. This socialist policy represented a breach of the doors of entry into the country, which have since been wide open to a massive and continuous flow of migrants.

Given this dramatic increase in immigration, with its extremely visible consequences for security, health, and housing shortages, a change to the law on foreigners that would establish some control over entry into national territory was welcome. Therefore, Parliament approved some changes, albeit very minor, but at least they didn't leave everything as it was.

These slight changes, however, prompted a request for a preventive review of constitutionality by the President of the Republic, who sent Parliament's decree to the Constitutional Court. This initiative is surprising, given that the President failed to request any review of the numerous unconstitutional measures approved by António Costa's government during the pandemic. Indeed, the President made no objection when, after lifting the state of emergency, Prime Minister António Costa stated that the lockdown "is to be maintained regardless of the constitution." Nor did he even raise any review of constitutionality when that government decreed a siege on the Lisbon metropolitan area, isolating 2.5 million citizens from the rest of the country, in flagrant violation of the constitution. But times change, wills (and parliamentary majorities) change, and now reviewing constitutionality has become a priority for the President, even in the face of very minor changes to the law.

The Constitutional Court, however, did as the President of the Republic wished and declared the amendments unconstitutional, allowing him to veto the legislation just minutes after the ruling was announced. The decision is difficult to legally sustain, as the dissenting votes clearly demonstrated, noting that the Vice President considered the ruling to have failed to meet "a demanding burden of reasoning" that would be necessary "for a constitutional judgment informed by such abstract and flexible values to prove an example of legal reason, rather than an ideological choice."

But if the Constitutional Court decides based on ideological choices, then it is time for its composition to reflect the current right-wing parliamentary majority. Therefore, the Central Bloc agreement on which its selection was based must be definitively abandoned in the next election of Constitutional Court judges. The country cannot continue with its doors broken down on immigration without Parliament having at least the right to put a simple lock on it.