PS appoints Judge Dora Lucas Neto to the Constitutional Court

This Friday, the PS appointed Judge Dora Lucas Neto to the Constitutional Court to fill the vacant position left vacant by Maria da Assunção Raimundo, who resigned from this position in June.

In a statement, the PS parliamentary group said it nominated Lucas Neto’s Dora “in an effort to ensure that the Constitutional Court (TC) does not become even more unbalanced in terms of gender.”

“Therefore, Dora Lucas Neto, holding the position of Judge Adviser at the Supreme Administrative Court, will go to the polls on November 29, with the PS deciding to appoint a career judge with a recognized professional career corresponding to the required profile, to fill the place of the missing element in the TC,” the statement said. .

The PS considers it important that by the end of the current legislative assembly “the election of a new full member” of the TC is guaranteed, noting that this process “began many months ago, before the current political framework of dismissing the Prime Minister and calling on the President of the Republic for early elections.”

“In order to find a judge who would adequately fulfill these functions, the PS Parliamentary Group puts forward the name of Dora Lucas Neto, confident that she is the element that meets the requirement to maintain the presence of men and women in the TC”, refers.

The party states that Dora Lucas Neto has a law degree from the University of Lisbon and was “a judge in the Administrative and Financial Court of Lisbon 2, a judge in the Administrative Court of the Circulo de Lisbon, a secretary judge of the High Council of Administrative Courts and Taxes, who was subsequently seconded to as an assistant judge of the Southern Central Administrative Court.”

The Constitutional Court, a sovereign body created by the revision of the 1982 Constitution and which took office in 1983, is composed of 13 judges, ten of whom are elected by the Assembly of the Republic and three of whom are co-opted from among the former.

According to the Law on the Constitutional Court, for the election of a judge by the Assembly of the Republic it is necessary “to vote by two-thirds of the deputies present, if it exceeds the absolute majority of the deputies in the office.”

In order to elect Dora Lucas Neto as a consulting judge of the Constitutional Court, in addition to the positive votes of the PS, the support of the PSD is necessary.

A leadership conference meeting this week has set the election of a Constitutional Court judge for November 29.

Maria da Assunção Raimundo, who was elected as TC Judge Adviser three years ago by the Assembly of the Republic, resigned from her duties in June this year.

The judge was elected on July 10, 2020, together with university professor José João Abrantes, TC judges by the Assembly of the Republic, in the second attempt to elect two new judges.