Constitution of Portugal

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The constitution of Portugal ( Portuguese Constituição da República Portuguesa ) was passed in Parliament two years after the Carnation Revolution on April 2, 1976 , after it had been drawn up by the Constituent Assembly (Assembleia Constituinte). It is strongly influenced by the provisions of a basic democratic order based on experience with the state practice of the dictatorship under Salazar and Caetano in the Estado Novo , and its content and structure are based on the German Basic Law .

The constitution currently contains 296 articles. Changes to the Portuguese constitution (revisões constitucionais) took place in 1982, 1989, 1992, 1997, 2001, 2004 and 2005.

Principles

The constitution of the Portuguese Republic has characterized the Portuguese political system as a parliamentary republic since the great constitutional reform of 1982 . Since then, the powers of the President of the Republic (Articles 133 to 140) have been limited to representative functions, but he can dissolve Parliament (Article 133 e). The prime minister is the chairman of the government , whose responsibility has only related to parliament since 1982. In parallel to what is required by German state organization law, the government can put a vote of confidence (Solicitação de voto de confiança) to parliament - the assembly of the republic - to confirm the majority of its policies (Art. 193). The Assembly of the Republic can pass a vote of no confidence (Moção de censura) against the government (Art. 194).

structure

The Portuguese constitution in the version after the most recent VII. Constitutional amendment of 2005 initially contains a preamble (preâmbulo) , secondly "basic provisions" in Articles 1 to 11 on state theory and symbols, then four parts of the constitution (partes) in Articles 12 to 289 and at the end transitional and final provisions (Articles 290 to 296). In detail, the partes contain a catalog of fundamental rights “Fundamental rights and duties”, an economic constitution “Economic organization”, a state organization law part “Organization of political power”, and final provisions “Guarantee and revision of the constitution”. These parts of the constitution are in turn subdivided into titles (títulos) and these again into chapters (capítulos) .

Earlier constitutions

  1. Constituição Política da Monarquia Portuguesa (1822)
  2. Carta Constitucional da Monarquia Portuguesa (1826)
  3. Constituição Política da Monarquia Portuguesa (1838)
  4. Constituição Política da República Portuguesa (1911)
  5. Constituição Política da República Portuguesa (1933)

literature

  • Constitutions of the EU member states, Beck texts in dtv, 6th edition 2005 ( ISBN 978-3423055543 )

Web links

  • Constitutional text in the current version from 2005 in Portuguese , English (PDF; 291 kB) and French (PDF; 311 kB).
  • Constitutional text in the version from 2001 in German .

Footnotes

  1. ↑ text (German)
  2. ↑ text (German)
  3. ↑ text (German)
  4. ↑ text (German)