Voting on specific bills to regulate “lobbying” was postponed this Wednesday by the Commission on Transparency and the Status of MPs, so Parliament will not have time to finalize the legislation before it is dissolved.
The postponement was first proposed by MP Carlos Guimarães Pinto of Illinois, but was rejected, with the PS and Chega voting against it. After the vote, the SDP exercised its potestative (imperative) right, postponing the discussion of the legal representation of interests.
The Assembly of the Republic will be dissolved by the President of the Republic on Monday, with the last plenary voting session scheduled for Thursday, which will be the last opportunity to approve the diplomas in a final global vote.
Due to the postponement of the specialty vote, Parliament no longer has time to approve the law in this legislature.
The projects presented by the PS, SDP, IL and PAN were on the agenda of today’s meeting of the 14th commission, after the consideration of the case had already been postponed on Tuesday due to the lack of a quorum.
These diplomas were generally approved at the plenary meeting last week and sent to the 14th Specialization Commission.
This Wednesday the PS presented a new text that was not presented at the meeting.
At the meeting, MP Emilia Cerqueira felt that approving this law “at the last minute” was not “the best way to do it” and suggested that “the matter should be left until the next legislative session,” arguing that Parliament should bear “responsibility.” and care” due to the complexity of the case.
The Social Democrat noted that there had been a request that the decision to postpone be taken by consensus, and criticized the PS because it had expressed its intention to close the process only “with broad consensus” but “decided to do it on its own.” , most of them have two more days.”
The MP justified the request for a delay “in the name of this responsibility and the dignity that the Assembly deserves.”
Carlos Guimarães Pinto of the Liberal Initiative noted that these projects were generally approved less than a week ago, and believes that without the usual procedures of the legislative process in the specialty, such as hearings, it would be impossible to anticipate and eliminate any problems that may arise in the legislation .
Pointing out that “this legislation is necessary,” the Liberal argued that there should be provisions for returning to the issue in the next legislature, refusing to “give up on having well-thought-out legislation just to speed up the process.”
The former IL leader also said that he would not force a delay and called for a decision to be made by consensus, which did not happen.
When these proposals were discussed as a whole, several parties within a short period of time spoke out against their approval.
Today, socialist Pedro Delgado Alves once again refuted this criticism, pointing out that this process began in 2016, and in 2019 there was a contextualized text that was ultimately not approved, and several hearings were held on this matter.
The deputy considered that “sufficient conditions have been met” for voting on the proposals presented, and emphasized that this would be “an important step towards transparency.”
For their part, PCP and BE reiterated their position against regulation of interest representation and agreed that the conditions for approval of the initiative were not met.
Chega, on the other hand, opposed the delay and pointed out “the importance of passing legislation on this issue.”
This was not the first time that the Assembly of the Republic tried to regulate “lobbying”, an issue that was vetoed by the President of the Republic in 2019.