Judicial decision? BE says Government suffered “extremely large loss”

O coordinator of BE today considered that the government suffered a “extreme loss” with the judicial decision on housing demonstrations and challenged the President of the Republic to press the executive in the Council of State.

“ After 23 days of growing mobilizations, today the government has had a huge defeat with a judicial sentence that comes, after all, to say what we Left Block have been saying for a long time: there is no legal basis for what the government has been doing with the successive police charges against peaceful protesters ", he considered the national blogger.

José Manuel Pureza spoke to journalists in the Assembly of the Republic in a reaction to the decision of the Lisbon Administrative Court which considered that the limit of 00:30 for demonstrations is not “absolute and automatic”, authorizing a protester to remain at dawn in Rossio, in Lisbon, with a tent.

From the perspective of the former Vice-President of the Assembly of the Republic, this decision, in addition to a defeat, “removes legitimacy” to the Government “on housing” and “on respect for the rule of law”.

“And if Louis Montenegro doesn’t learn from the street cry, then it’s time for the President of the Republic, starting today at the Council of State, to remind Luís Montenegro,” the BE leader said.

Pureza welcomed the attitude of the Head of State in this matter, after António José Seguro expressed willingness to dialogue with the demonstrators and, on Sunday, asked the Government and the Ombudsman “information and clarifications, in all detail, about what happened this early in the demonstrations in Lisbon and Porto”.

For the coordinator of BE, this attitude of the Head of State and the judicial decision leave the Government “more and more isolated”. However, the blogger urged the head of state to go further.

“ It is time, I repeat, for the President of the Republic to tell the Government that his policies on housing, on respect for the rule of law, have completely lost legitimacy and the President of the Republic is the body of sovereignty that should alert the government and call the government to reason, holding it responsible for everything that has happened wrong in the country”, he said.

José Manuel Pureza was also questioned about the fact that the Ministry of Internal Administration (MAI) today argued that the administrative court's decision on protests for housing does not recognize the right to set up tents in public space.

“I think it is very worrying that the MAI affords to make an interpretation of the judicial judgment that leads, once again, to ridicule and irresponsible. Because if the interpretation of the MAI was to take it seriously, then we would have individual requests from each person who wanted to symbolize with the mounting of a tent his denunciation of the housing crisis in Portugal, absolutely endless requests ", sustained.

In this context, BE today asked the Government for clarifications on the fines passed by PSP to drivers for honking in support of the demonstration in Rossio last Sunday.

Purity said there was a “caricata” situation at stake: “If what happened yesterday had been applied on the night that AD [the PSD/CDS coalition] won the elections, or on the night that I no longer know which team celebrated their victory in the Marquis or, finally, another night of great celebration in Lisbon, Porto or any city in the country, the volume of fines would have increased in an unexplained manner.”.