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Portugal’s Socialists Bypass President, Send Citizenship Law to Constitutional Court

Socialists bypass presidential action and trigger a preventive review of the nationality law, halting its entry into force.

Ahmad Abbas

IMI
• Amman

Portugal’s Socialist Party will send the recently approved Nationality Law amendments directly to the Constitutional Court for preventive review, invoking a parliamentary prerogative used only twice in the court’s 42-year history, according to Expresso.

Parliament voted on October 24 to approve amendments resetting the citizenship timeline to seven years for EU Member States and Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP) citizens, and ten years for all other nationalities.

The law shields pending citizenship applications from retroactive changes but denies protection to residence holders who have not yet initiated citizenship applications.

The maneuver suspends the law before promulgation. Portugal’s Constitution grants one-fifth of sitting Assembly deputies the power to request preventive constitutional review of any decree sent to the President for promulgation.

PS holds 58 deputies in the 230-seat Assembly. The party needs 46 signatures to trigger the mechanism and plans to formalize the request next week, with only Socialist deputies signing.

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Rare Constitutional Tool Freezes Legislation

Preventive parliamentary review has appeared just twice since the Constitutional Court’s 1983 founding. Both instances came from the Social Democratic Party (PSD): a 2005 referendum law and a 2006 regional finance law. Judges declined to rule on either case.

The initiative bypasses President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa entirely. Unlike the October citizenship reforms, when the President submitted the law for constitutional review, this action originates from Parliament’s opposition minority using organic constitutional provisions.

Between the PS and the Presidency, “there is an exchange of information but politics do not align,” an unnamed party leader told Expresso.

Miranda’s Constitutional Concerns Drive Socialist Strategy

Jorge Miranda’s 82-page legal opinion identifying constitutional violations in the proposed amendments appears to have shaped the Socialist decision.

Miranda, who co-authored Portugal’s 1976 Constitution alongside Rui Tavares Lanceiro, produced the analysis based on the request of Liberty Legal in September after Golden Visa investors raised alarms about retroactive rule changes.

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His opinion argued that the reforms would violate fundamental constitutional principles, including legal certainty, human dignity, and create unconstitutional “diachronic inequality.”

Parliament proceeded with a modified version despite Miranda’s warnings and a prior Constitutional Court ruling that found earlier versions unconstitutional when the President submitted them for review.

Miranda’s analysis emphasizes that introducing differentiation between Portuguese citizens based on acquisition method “raises the potential for violating the principle of universality” and “evokes questions regarding the principle of equality, namely because one of the stated factors is territory of origin.”

Written submissions to Parliament’s Constitutional Affairs, Rights, Liberties and Guarantees Committee from the Superior Council of the Magistracy, the Bar Association, and multiple constitutional scholars, including Miranda, warned of unconstitutionality in both challenged provisions.

Two Provisions Face Constitutional Challenge

The Socialists identified practical cases illustrating legal uncertainty created by the new law. These cases avoid invoking positive discrimination, favoring CPLP and EU citizens who need seven years of residence rather than ten for other nationalities.

The approved amendments formalize that the citizenship clock starts only when authorities grant a residence permit, not at application initiation. Legal experts note authorities typically require two to three years to issue residence permits, effectively extending the naturalization timeline to 9-13 years for most foreigners and Golden Visa investors unless processing accelerates.

A UK citizen (non-EU) residing in Portugal for 4.5 years when the law enters force must wait an additional 5.5 years for citizenship eligibility. A Ukrainian fulfilling Portugal’s residence requirement on the eve of the law’s entry has no window to file an application and must wait five more years.

The government vowed to clear the Golden Visa backlog in 2026, while confirming that Golden Visa applicants did not get any priority in processing, a statement which experts in the field dubbed “shameless.”

Children born in Portugal to immigrant parents (even those with legal residence permits for five years minimum) gain Portuguese citizenship only upon entering the primary school’s second cycle at ages 10-11. Current law grants Portuguese nationality at birth to such children.

The Penal Code amendment under review allows courts to revoke Portuguese nationality granted to foreign-born naturalized citizens convicted of serious crimes carrying prison sentences of four years or longer.

The decree lists qualifying offenses: Crimes against life, physical integrity, personal liberty, sexual liberty and self-determination, criminal association, state security crimes, illegal immigration assistance, terrorism, prohibited weapon possession, arms trafficking, and narcotics trafficking.

PS Deputy Filipe Neto Brandão has characterized the decree’s “manifest unconstitutionality” on social media. The party autonomized this element in its own decree during the revision process, though the government originally submitted it to Parliament as a unified proposal for Nationality Law reform.

Socialist arguments maintain that “no distinctions can exist” between citizens who are Portuguese by birth in Portugal versus those who are Portuguese through naturalization.

Five Opposition Parties Voted Against the Amendments

Five parties voted against both articles: PS, PCP, Livre, BE, and PAN. Only PS commands sufficient parliamentary seats to meet the one-fifth threshold independently.

The organic laws at stake authorize Parliament to address “acquisition, loss and reacquisition of Portuguese citizenship” and permit “one-fifth of deputies in the Assembly of the Republic in effective exercise of functions” to “require the Constitutional Court’s preventive assessment of the constitutionality of any norm contained in a decree that has been sent to the President of the Republic for promulgation.”

The Assembly passed the amendments in a final vote in October. Parliament sent the diplomas to Belém on Tuesday.

Timeline Now Shifts to Palácio Ratton

The Constitutional Court has no fixed deadline for preventive review rulings, though such cases typically proceed faster than standard constitutional challenges. The law remains suspended throughout the review process and cannot enter into force until judges issue their determination.

If the court rules provisions unconstitutional, Parliament must amend or abandon them. If judges uphold the amendments, the President can then promulgate the law for publication in the official gazette.

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