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Honourable Deputy Speaker of Parliament,
Honourable Prime Minister,
Honourable President of the Constitutional Court,
Honourable President of the Supreme Court of Justice,
Honourable Councillors,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

On March 9 of 2006, when empowered as President of the Republic, I undertook the commitment to observe the Constitution and ensure that it be observed.

This sworn statement, delivered in the terms established by that same Fundamental Law, is a special bond between the Head of State and a system for the defence of the Constitution which is guaranteed by the Constitutional Court.

It is thus, with elation, that I have the honour to preside at the commemorations of the 25th anniversary of the Constitutional Court of the Portuguese Republic.

Elation, because the 1982 constitutional amendment, when creating this High Court as a privileged guardian of the Constitution and of democracy, completed the procedure of the assertion of Portugal as a democratic State abiding by the rule of Law.

Elation, also, because a quarter of a century of the life of the Constitutional Court, as a court of legislation and as a court of fundamental rights, is a reference of stability, both in the consolidation of the values on which our juridical structure is based, and in the maturing of the institutional relationships of a State abiding by the rule of Law, which bases its legitimacy on the dignity of the human being and on the sovereignty of the people.

Elation, finally, because, as a judicial body endowed with a legitimate and natural political component, due both to the procedure for the appointment of its members, and to the contents of the Constitution, the Constitutional Court never allowed itself to be involved in the maze of party-political conflict.

The history of a Constitutional Court is also that of the Judge Councillors which stamped its activity. In this path of twenty five years, and just mentioning the name of its presidents, we can set apart a period of implementation, under the chairmanship of Armando Marques Guedes; a period of consolidation, jurisprudential melioration and exercise of new legal capacities, under the chairmanships of José Manuel Cardoso da Costa, Luís Nunes de Almeida and Artur Maurício; and now, under the chairmanship of Rui Moura Ramos, a period marked by new challenges.

It can immediately be referred, amongst these challenges, those that are placed with regard to the relations between the law of the European Union and the Constitution of the Republic. Further, due to the need to more effectively guarantee the principle of legal certainty, when facing a legal system which includes legislation not often noted for its quality, its objectivity or by the predictability of its application.
Also relevant is the need to maintain the swiftness in the administration of justice, in view of greater demand, and of the exercise of the new and diversified competences which are being attributed to the Constitutional Court. And, lastly, to accentuate the challenge deriving from the need to clarify the legal system of social rights, at a time of doctrinal debate.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

To commemorate 25 years of history of the Constitutional Court is also to celebrate the performance of the Portuguese model of auditing constitutionality.

This is a system with its own characteristics which, headed by the Constitutional Court, couples a material audit committed to all the courts, with an abstract audit concentrated upon the highest body of constitutional law, which is the dominant model in continental Europe.

Practice showed that the Portuguese model succeeded in being balanced, agile and effective in the enunciation of differing types of procedures, reacting to the occurrence of all sorts of unconstitutionalities which affect legislative rules, whether by the initiative of a great number of constitutional bodies, or by the initiative of the people.

It is, equally, one of the models that, through recourse to constitutionality, bring the Constitution nearer to the citizen.

Such an option allows that the Constitution of the Republic is not just an isolated rule of collective life, interpreted solely by a restricted and closed nucleus of juridical executants, but a Law that any citizen can invoke in the defence of his rights and that any judge must use as a standard for the decisions he proffers.

It is also a model which has rendered favourable a great number of decisions of merit in the defence of fundamental rights, a result which, for now, withdraws the opportunity for the discussion of its reform through the pondering of alternative remedies.

Finally, it is a model which has become consolidated in the universe of the Portuguese language, with particular relevance for the common grounds between the Portuguese and Brazilian systems and between our model and that of the Portuguese speaking African countries, such as Angola, Cape Verde and São Tomé e Príncipe. 

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I reserve a final word of praise for the charter of independence of the judge councillors and for the quality of the decisions of the Constitutional Court.

Since the members that comprise this Court come from sources of legitimacy with different origins as to the respective appointment procedure, institutional practice demonstrates that a rule of effective independence of the constitutional judges has always governed the accomplishment of their duties, thus assuring impartiality and rigour in the guarantee of the constitutionality of the Law.

On the other hand, since the Constitution is a law whose principles and rules must maintain a necessary flexibility and be open to the regulation of new facts and new situations, the Constitutional Court was able to provide a current and evolutionary understanding in the process of interpretation of our Fundamental Law.

In effect, this Court is a jurisdiction of its time, aggregating the traditional role of «negative lawmaker», which eliminates unconstitutional rules from the legal system, with the role of repairer of the legislative texture, through the delivery of judgements which model the effects of the rulings or of the decision of unconstitutionality itself.

Finally, it is important to emphasize that the evolutionary interpretation and repairing jurisprudence of the Court were quietly assertive in our legal system, in the respect for the powers of the State, without activist temptations, and with a marking capacity of self containment, discretion and precaution.

These are the reasons which allow us to celebrate, with elation, the 25 years of the life of an institution which has constituted, for the Portuguese Republic, a reference for stability and progress.

Thank you.