Lack of judicial independence from political power is a problem that Portugal does not have, argues Van Dunem – Observer
The Minister of Justice defends this Friday that the lack of autonomy of the Public Ministry is facing the executive power “is a problem that Portugal does not have” and that a pandemic proved the importance of the rule of law to guarantee rights.
At the closing of the conference “Rule of Law in Europe”, organized by MEDEL – European Magistrates for Democracy and Liberties, which took place on Thursday and this Friday at the Catholic University of Portugal, in Lisbon, and during which much has been done. discussed the setbacks in judicial independence and prosecutors face political power in states like Poland and Hungary, Minister Francisca van Dunem defended that this lack of autonomy “is a problem that Portugal does not have”.
Francisca Van Dunem linked the rule of law to the safeguarding of fundamental rights, recalled that the Treaty on European Union enshrines the rule of law as a “fundamental value” of the Union, inseparable from democracy and fundamental rights that “can only be guaranteed if it is effective judicial protection is ensured, if the principle of equality is respected, if there is freedom of expression and debate, with independent and responsible media, and an active civil society”.
“The times we live in challenge us to reaffirm the importance of the rule of law”, said the minister, basing the impact on the Covid-19 pandemic not “relieving inequalities” or growth in hate speeches, xenophobia and discrimination, “ associated with issues of migration, minorities, security and crime”.
Van Dunem said that in the Portuguese case for the first time in democracy it was necessary to trigger the state of emergency for an “unfortunately, very long” period, during which “very demanding decisions” were taken to restrict rights, freedoms and guarantees, giving the courts “an essential role as guarantors of the Constitution and fundamental rights” in that period.
It is up to us all to defend the rule of law and the separation of powers and to promote a democratic culture and a humanist culture. Protecting, promoting and strengthening the rule of law is not only a duty of public institutions, but an imperative of citizenship”, said the minister.
Manuel Soares, president of the Association of Portuguese Judges (ASJP), underlined, in turn, that the values of the rule of law “are neither consensual nor irreversible” in Europe, noting that the cases of Poland and Hungary demonstrate how “the democracy contains within itself the destructive vices that can corrode it from within”.
“Everywhere there are aspiring dictators, disguised as democrats, waiting for the right opportunity to grab power,” said Manuel Soares, raising the importance of unionism and judicial associations in the independence of the independence of the judiciary, including in the “line of the front ”of the denunciation and call to action against attacks that independence in Poland and Hungary.
Manuel Soares criticized, therefore, that in Portugal this associativism is not seen as something “virtuous”, but rather “vicious”.
“In Portugal there are many people who demonize judicial associations as if it were an illegitimate excrescence, alien to sovereignty and democratic life, as if it were a subversive instrument of the judiciary to take political power by storm,” he said.
The president of the ASJP also referred to the jurisprudence of the Court of Justice of the European Union, which may bind all Member States to comply with the principles of the rule of law adopted in the European Union treaties, and to which all countries are linked when they “adhere to aging” to the Union.
Good news for the vitality of the European project and bad news for the impulses of populism that in several countries are planning to dismantle as a guarantee of the rule of law and judicial independence”, he defended.