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The President of the Republic enacted today the Parliamentary Bills which are part of the said anticorruption package, as follows:

- alteration of the rules governing offences by holders of political office, widening the number of office holders ruled by such legislation and comprising a greater number of behaviours;

- alteration of the Penal Code, replicating with regard to public servants, the rules also approved for holders of public office and highly placed public servants, relative to crimes of passive corruption and undue receipt of values of any type, and also including the fraudulent violation of urban rulings;

- impairment of banking secrecy, withdrawing it from general rulings;

- alteration of the General Legislation of Credit Institutions and Finance Companies, creating a data base with the Bank of Portugal comprising all bank accounts and respective holders;

- alteration of binding regulations of the careers and remuneration of public servants with respect to guarantees of impartiality, identifying those situations subject to accumulation of office or public activity and those subject to incompatibility;

- alteration of the rules covering the public control of the wealth of holders of public office, widening the number of office holders who are bound to submit to the Constitutional Court the respective annual declaration of income;

- alteration of the rules that control the application of measures for the protection of witnesses in penal procedures, through the non disclosure of the identity of witnesses relative to certain offences of qualified fraud and malicious administration.

The referred bills are the result of work developed by the “Eventual committee for the political follow up of the corruption phenomenon and the integrated analysis of solutions aiming to fight it”, which the Presidency of the Republic has accompanied with special interest.

It should be recalled that the corruption phenomenon was the topic chosen by the President of the Republic in the speech addressed in the ceremony evoking the 96th anniversary of the Proclamation of the Republic (click here to read the speech delivered by the President of the Republic), who stated:

“… there are signs which lead us to seriously reflect if this phenomenon has been effectively and satisfactorily restricted, either by instituting a culture of duty and responsibility, or through criminal prosecution.

Corruption has a corrosive potential for the quality of democracy which must not be underestimated. As such, everyone must be called upon to undertake the battle to bring ethics into public office, on behalf of democracy and of the Republic. All initiatives that seriously contribute towards overcoming the corruption phenomenon should be welcomed with enthusiasm.”

More recently, on 27 January last, in the opening ceremony of the judicial year, the President of the Republic again made reference to the corruption phenomenon when he stated:

“… we must draw the conclusion that the legislation does not conform to reality, which leads to this topic (fighting corruption) being cyclically returned to the political agenda, but without any effective results being achieved towards improving transparency in our public life.”