He can refer to the Constitutional Court any legislation coming from Parliament that he thinks might be unconstitutional.
This is important because Justice in Portugal is slow as shit (really, truly, world-beating, stupidly slow) so rather than some unconstitutional shit (probably designed to make some well-connected fatcats even richer) actually coming into effect as Law and spending 10+ years fucking people’s lives whilst it gets challenged in court and works its way up to the top court of the land with the Government spending taxpayer’s money to doggedly defend it all the way until that court finally throws it down, it can go directly from Parliament to the President to that court before it ever affects anybody’s life.
(Having lived in Britain which has no written Constitution, I have learned to value having a Constitution as a second line of defense against political abuse by parties which with a minority of cast votes have parliamentary majorities because the voting system is some undemocratic shit that does not give the same weight to all votes rather than Proportional Vote)
Personally, even though the President has flashier powers such as being able to bring down a government, I think that this specific more technical power of referring legislation directly to the Constitutional Court before it becomes the Law in effect can be far more important in terms of impact in people’s lives, especially in this day and age when politics is pretty crooked and money-driven.
The guy who just got elected, even though he hails from one of the two mainstream parties which have dominated politics in Portugal almost since the start of Democracy in 74 and are pretty rotten, comes from a faction of that party which is actually left of center and is not connected with the crooks that led that party for that last 2 decades, so I have great hopes that he will be more consistent than the last one in using these less flashy powers to stop the kind of unconstitutional shit that screws the many for the good of a few that the neo-liberals who dominate those mainstream parties have often pushed in the last 3 or 4 decades.
You’re overstating how decisive that power really is. The President isn’t the only one (Provedor de Justiça, Prime Minister, Political Parties, etc…) who can trigger constitutional review , Parliament can override the president’s vetoes, and most harmful policies aren’t unconstitutional anyway, just political. The Court doesn’t magically prevent damage either, very often, it rules after laws are already applied. So yes, it’s a useful brake, but it doesn’t change the fact that real power in Portugal is with Parliament and the Government, not the President.
At the end of the day, the President’s main visible role is representing the country abroad and maintaining diplomatic relations, and on that level I’m glad Ventura isn’t the face of Portugal. All these headlines about a “socialist landslide over the far-right” ignore how the Portuguese system actually works: the President doesn’t govern. Parliament and the Government do, and they’re right-leaning right now.
He can refer to the Constitutional Court any legislation coming from Parliament that he thinks might be unconstitutional.
This is important because Justice in Portugal is slow as shit (really, truly, world-beating, stupidly slow) so rather than some unconstitutional shit (probably designed to make some well-connected fatcats even richer) actually coming into effect as Law and spending 10+ years fucking people’s lives whilst it gets challenged in court and works its way up to the top court of the land with the Government spending taxpayer’s money to doggedly defend it all the way until that court finally throws it down, it can go directly from Parliament to the President to that court before it ever affects anybody’s life.
(Having lived in Britain which has no written Constitution, I have learned to value having a Constitution as a second line of defense against political abuse by parties which with a minority of cast votes have parliamentary majorities because the voting system is some undemocratic shit that does not give the same weight to all votes rather than Proportional Vote)
Personally, even though the President has flashier powers such as being able to bring down a government, I think that this specific more technical power of referring legislation directly to the Constitutional Court before it becomes the Law in effect can be far more important in terms of impact in people’s lives, especially in this day and age when politics is pretty crooked and money-driven.
The guy who just got elected, even though he hails from one of the two mainstream parties which have dominated politics in Portugal almost since the start of Democracy in 74 and are pretty rotten, comes from a faction of that party which is actually left of center and is not connected with the crooks that led that party for that last 2 decades, so I have great hopes that he will be more consistent than the last one in using these less flashy powers to stop the kind of unconstitutional shit that screws the many for the good of a few that the neo-liberals who dominate those mainstream parties have often pushed in the last 3 or 4 decades.
You’re overstating how decisive that power really is. The President isn’t the only one (Provedor de Justiça, Prime Minister, Political Parties, etc…) who can trigger constitutional review , Parliament can override the president’s vetoes, and most harmful policies aren’t unconstitutional anyway, just political. The Court doesn’t magically prevent damage either, very often, it rules after laws are already applied. So yes, it’s a useful brake, but it doesn’t change the fact that real power in Portugal is with Parliament and the Government, not the President.
At the end of the day, the President’s main visible role is representing the country abroad and maintaining diplomatic relations, and on that level I’m glad Ventura isn’t the face of Portugal. All these headlines about a “socialist landslide over the far-right” ignore how the Portuguese system actually works: the President doesn’t govern. Parliament and the Government do, and they’re right-leaning right now.