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“Having enacted, to be published as organic legislation, Parliamentary Decree No. 295/XII, which approves the Juridical Regime of the Regional Referendum in the Azores Autonomous Region, I decided to address Parliament, in line with the precept in item d) of article No. 133 of the Constitution, the following message:
1. The Juridical Regime of the Regional Referendum in the Azores Autonomous Region is specifically consecrated in the Constitution, and the constitutional regime of the national referendum is equally applicable to it, with the necessary qualifications.
2. Not by chance, the now enacted Regime has many of the features contained in the current regime for the national referendum.
3. One of these features, in line with the precepts of the constitution, is that the President of the Republic is duty bound to submit the referendum proposal to the Constitutional Court, for the preventive checking of its constitutionality and legality.
4. However, article No. 22 of the referred Regime establishes that “within a two day delay from the date the decision of the Constitutional Court is known, the President of the Republic so advises the President of the Legislative Assembly of the Azores Autonomous Region who, in turn, conveys it to the parliamentary groups and representatives, to the Regional Government and, such being the case, to the nominees of the group of citizens that subscribed the people’s initiative”.
5. The binding of the President of the Republic, by ordinary law, to such a short delay can only be justified due to valid reasons. This does not seem to be the case with this legislation which, besides dealing with bureaucratic matters, does not add anything that may be of use to the act in itself.
6. In effect, notwithstanding the duty to immediately convey the decision of the Constitutional Court by its President to the President of the Republic, as stated in article No. 27 of the Regime, the same provision determines its conveyance for publication.
7. However, in the terms of article No. 119 of the Constitution, the decisions of the Constitutional Court are obligatorily published in the Republic’s Gazette, without which it has no legal effectiveness.
8. In addition, in the terms of article No. 28 of the same Regime, the “President of the Republic takes the decision over calling the referendum within twenty days from the publication of the decision of the Constitutional Court that checks the proposal’s constitutionality and legality”.
9. The immediate notification of the Constitutional Court’s decision to the Legislative Assembly of the Azores Autonomous Region does not thus seem to add any useful puepose: not only its effectiveness is conditioned to the publication but, in the case of a decision of non-unconstitutionality, the period for the constitutional and legal decision attributed to the President of the Republic must be preserved.
10. Should there be a decision of non-constitutionality or illegality, in the terms of article No. 23, the President of the Republic returns the referendum proposal to the Legislative assembly of the Azores Autonomous Region. It does not thus seem that such has necessarily to occur within a two day delay, neither does the law so oblige – and which, anyway, creates a contradiction between the obligatory conveyance of the decision and the duty to return the proposal, this depending from the gazetting of the decision of the Constitutional Court.
11. Since we seem to be dealing with a bureaucracy without any visible usefulness, of a disproportionate binding of the President of the Republic, by ordinary legislation, to an extremely short delay, and that could also generate legislative contradictions, it is believed that this solution could be the object of reflexion by the Honourable Members of Parliament.
12. Finally, it is suggested that the text of §2 of article No. 31, in that part which refers to “citizens of other countries” should be more clearly harmonized with the provision of article No. 15 of the Constitution and with article No. 38 of the Juridical Regime of the National Referendum, considering its application to citizens from Portuguese speaking countries.
Having decided to enact this bill since it was an express intention of the legislator, based upon wide consensus and indisputably opportune, I anyway believe that the points under consideration should be the object of re-appreciation by the Honourable Members of Parliament, thus removing interpretative doubts or misapprehensions that may subsist in this issue.
Palace of Belém, 20 January 2015
THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC
Aníbal Cavaco Silva
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