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The President of the Republic requested from the Constitutional Court the preventative supervision of provisions comprised in legislation covering inter-municipal bodies concerning the transfer of powers from the State to the local authorities.

Following is the text of the communiqué regarding the decision of President Cavaco Silva.

1. With respect to doubts arisen as to conformity with Constitutional law, the President of the Republic requested from the Constitutional Court the preventative supervision of the constitutionality of the provisions comprised in Parliamentary Decrees No. 132/XII and No. 136/XII that approve the statute of the inter-municipal bodies and establishes the principles of the transfer of powers from the State to the local authorities.

2. The Constitutional Court was specifically requested to comment on the conformity with the Constitution of the provisions that create the referred bodies, insofar as these may be qualified as local authorities, in the possible non observance of the constitutional principles in the typicality covering the setting up of such local authorities and the election by direct universal suffrage of the decision taking authority. Preventative supervision was equally raised as to the legal provisions that qualify the assignment of constitutional powers, or “without legal coverage”, of the Government on local authorities, in possible violation of the constitutional principle of conformity to law.

3. The request for preventative supervision covered two Parliamentary Decrees since both these are directly related, in order to allow the joint consideration of the revocatory provisions, whence the coming into force separately from the respective legislative regime would lead to an effect not required by the legislator.