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The President of the Republic requested from the Constitutional Court the preventive supervision of a provision in the Bill that approved the juridical rulings of the Intelligence System of the Portuguese Republic.

Concerning this decision the Presidency of the Republic discloses the following communiqué:

1. The President of the Republic requested from the Constitutional Court the preventive supervision of the constitutionality of a provision comprised in Parliamentary Decree No. 426/XII, which approved the juridical rulings of the Intelligence System of the Portuguese Republic.

2. In effect, the Constitutional Court was requested to provide its opinion on the conformity of the terms of §2 of article no. 78 of the Decree, which enables the access of officers on the staff of the SIS and SIED intelligence services to underlying data, with §4 of article no. 34 of the Constitution, which establishes the privileged features of correspondence and communications

3. Since the merit and need of these rulings are not at issue, especially within the context of the challenges to security placed by transnational terrorism, and which were, anyway, approved by a large majority, exceeding two thirds of Members of Parliament effectively in office, the requirement is to find out if the referred provision is in conformance with the Constitution.

4. In short, since the provision in question is fully justifiable in line with the new threats to national security, this request aims to clarify the doubts that have arisen as to its constitutionality.