Marcelo believes that parliamentary groups are organs of parties and parliament.

The President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, on Thursday considered that the parliamentary groups are the organs of the parties and the Parliament, referring to the fact that he studied this issue in the legal field.

According to the head of state, “on the one hand, these are parliamentary bodies that function within the framework of the parliament and contribute to the formation of the will of the parliament,” and “on the other hand, these are party bodies.”

“Today I even looked at the statutes of the SDP and PS and made sure that they are: statutes, party bodies, a parliamentary group,” Marcelo Rebelo de Souza added in response to journalists leaving the Ismaili Center in Lisbon.

The President of the Republic spoke after questioning about the legal operation that on Wednesday resulted in searches of the residence of former SDP chairman Rui Rio and the party’s national headquarters on suspicion of embezzlement and abuse of office. powers to use means of a public nature in a politico-guerrilla context, according to the Judicial Police (PJ).

Declining to comment directly on this court operation, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa addressed the question of the nature of the parliamentary groups that can establish offices with funds allocated depending on the respective number of deputies, regarding the question of whether they can include personnel performing the functions of an extra-parliamentary party

“This is a topic that I studied in my doctoral dissertation. My doctoral thesis in 1995 was on political parties in Portuguese constitutional law. And one of the most interesting questions is to find out what is the legal nature of the parliamentary groups, that is, yes, they are party bodies or parliamentary bodies, or both,” he said.

“And I came to the conclusion that it was both – by the way, the Constitutional Court came to this conclusion, at least in the old decision I know,” the President of the Republic said.