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The President of the Republic sent a message to Parliament concerning the return of the legislation which approves the third revision of the Political and Administrative Charter of the Azores Autonomous Region.

The text of the President of the Republic’s message is as follows:

"Mister Speaker

Excellency,

Having received, to be enacted as law, Parliamentary Decree No. 246/X, which approves the third revision of the Political and Administrative Charter of the Azores, I have decided, in the terms of article No. 136 of the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic, not to enact this legislation, based upon the following reasons:

1 – I commence by asserting that the non enactment of the legislation in question does not reflect any negative judgement of the model of autonomy set in the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic and materialized in the current Charter, now clear of several unconstitutional precepts which previously affected it.

2 – In effect, I not only assumed the commitment to comply and ensure compliance with the Constitution of the Republic, which consecrates the regional model of autonomy within the framework of a unitary State, but have always valued the autonomy of the insular regions, «one of the more fruitful creations of the Portuguese democracy», to repeat the words I uttered when addressing the Azores Parliament, on 8 October 2007.

3 – My substantive objections are well known to Members of Parliament and to the Portuguese. In due time, I thought it my duty to alert the Country that «it would be dangerous for the fundamental principle of the separation and inter-dependency of powers, which is the basis of our political system, to accept the precedent, which could be called upon in the future, that, through normal legislation, as is the case of the Political and Administrative Charter of the Azores, to encumber and limit the competences of sovereign bodies which are not expressly authorized by the Constitution of the Republic».

4 – This is exactly the case with the imposition, contained in the proposed text of article No. 114 of the Charter, to hear the bodies of the regional government, inasmuch as the specific constitutional precept on the dissolution and dismissal of their governing bodies, article No. 234 of the Constitution, binds the President of the Republic to solely hear the Council of State and the parties represented in the parliaments of the autonomous regions. This is, anyway, what is contained precisely under article No. 69, No. 1, of the Charter, which confirms the incongruity of the referred article no. 114 of that same Charter.

5 – To impose on the President of the Republic, through normal legislation, the hearing of other bodies, in addition to those that the Constitution expressly and specifically states, would signify creating a grievous and inadmissible precedent in the framework of a sound relationship between sovereign bodies and between the latter and regional bodies.

6 – What is at issue, naturally, is not a question relative to regional autonomy, but a matter of principle and of safeguard of the fundamental bases of the Republic with respect to the configuration of our system of government. It should be mentioned, moreover, that in 30 years of autonomy, never did the President of the Republic dissolve the Azores Parliament, and, on the other hand, the bodies of its own government were always heard in the decisive moments of regional political life.

7 – Before any legal interpretation of the issue, to admit the possibility of binding the President of the Republic to such a precept would be to admit the infringement of the fundamental principles of the politico-institutional design of the Portuguese State, or, to be more precise, the principle according to which the exercise of the competences of the sovereign bodies, such as contained in our Constitution, is not susceptible to change or compression by normal legislation, which has rules and procedures of issue and change distinct from the Fundamental Law of the Republic.

8 – When innovating in this respect, relative to previous versions of the Charter, the legislator, in addition to creating an intolerable precedent, goes so far as to try to interpret the letter of the Constitution, without credentials for the purpose and through a legislative inferior source, when expressly referring a constitutional precept which he understands as applicable to the presidential powers to dissolve the Regional Parliament.

9 – I consider that the functioning of Portuguese democracy and our system of government is based upon an essential rule, which cannot be called into question: the exercise of the powers of the several sovereign bodies is carried out within the framework of the Constitution, and cannot be placed at the mercy of the fortuitous contingency of normal legislation.

10 – Should a deviation to this fundamental principle be accepted, it would be legitimate from now on to limit by ordinary law the presidential competences or those of any other sovereign body, with grievous prejudice to the normal operation of all the institutions of the Republic.

11 – My substantive objections equally apply to the precept of No. 2 of article No. 140 of the Charter, through which Parliament decided to limit the powers of legislative initiative of its Members and Parliamentary Groups in respect of the procedure to revise the Political and Administrative Charter of the Azores Autonomous Region.

12 – Resulting from this precept, in any future revision of the Charter, the Parliament of the Republic will only be able to change, through the initiative of its Members or Parliamentary Groups, those precepts that the Region’s Parliament wishes to alter and that, as such, are contained in its proposal for revision.

13 – The Charter, although a law of the Republic, will from then on have its legislative framework set by the Members of the Regional Parliament, thus acquiring a degree of rigidity that could bring difficulties to the relationship between regional and sovereign bodies.

14 – In effect, through the precept contained in No. 2 of article No. 140 of the Charter, the Parliament of the Republic has unexplainably placed limitations on its own powers, thus abdicating from a competence that the Constitution attributed to it and imposes to it as the body which represents all the Portuguese.

15 – The Political and Administrative Charter of the Azores will thus acquire «hyper rigid» characteristics which can only create grievous problems for national cohesion. Whenever a revision procedure of the Charter is under way, Members of Parliament will be hindered from introducing changes which they believe as absolutely necessary to, for instance, face exceptional situations or to adapt precepts of the Charter to fundamental changes meanwhile occurred in the Constitution. Similarly to what occurs with the President of the Republic, this is a case of an extra-constitutional limitation of the powers of a sovereign body, which is manifestly unacceptable from the point of view of the normal operation of the institutions of the Republic. At a time of great uncertainty, as demonstrated by the current international financial crisis, would it be prudent and reasonable for Parliament to thus encumber the power of secondary initiative of members of parliament to be elected in the future?

16 – I opportunely called the attention of the Portuguese for the need to preserve two fundamental balancing factors of our Republic: the balance between the several sovereign bodies, on the one hand; the balance between the sovereign and the regional bodies, on the other. Both are absolutely necessary for the functioning of the Portuguese Republic as a democratic system, governed by clear and incontrovertible constitutional precepts, within the context of an unitary State which welcomes in its midst the insular autonomous systems.

17 – The legislation at issue, even though clear of several unconstitutional precepts which affected it, still includes two precepts – article No. 114 and article No. 140, No. 2 – which place at risk those politico-institutional balances, and I have thus decided not to enact it, in compliance with my mandate as President of the Portuguese Republic.

With highest personal regards,

THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC
Aníbal Cavaco Silva"