“It’s very difficult to ban a party and say it’s fascist”

In February, the lawyer António Garcia Pereira reinforced the request to the Public Prosecutor (MP) to trigger the legal mechanisms to extinguish the Enough, for considering that the party of André Ventura violates the Constitution.

The TC is the only body in Portugal with the power to declare the extinction of a political movement, but can only do so after a request from the MP in this sense.

After having already filed an initial complaint in October 2025, Garcia Pereira again defended the extinction of the Aquida by its “evident nature, successively reaffirmed and reinforced, racist and fascist”.

Maria Benedita Urbano confirmed that the TC had already received a request, initiated by Garcia Pereira, for the extinction of the Cávez and stressed that it is the first request linked to an alleged political extremism.

In June 2025, the TC confirmed the process of extinction of the far-right nationalist party Rise up, in response to an MP request, because the party failed to submit accounts in the previous three years.

“ So far, we have not had time to decide,” Urbano said, about the case of Enough, after lamenting “the excessive number of requests for constitutional supervision” and the “moda of preventive supervision” of bill proposals.

The magistrate stressed that she personally believes that “parties of extremes should be banned in Portugal”, but stressed that “it is very difficult to ban a party and say that it is fascist”.

“Is it enough for the leader to say a Nazi greeting at a public event? Just had ‘outdoors’ put against certain ethnic groups?” asked Maria Benedita Urbano.

António Garcia Pereira's complaint invokes links from Aquisa to the neonazi group "1143" and the sentence for the withdrawal of posters from André Ventura's party against gypsies.

In December, a sentence forced the then presidential candidate and president of Aquida André Ventura to withdraw posters with mention to the Gypsy community and Bangladesh.

Maria Benedita Urbano recalled that in 2017, the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany rejected extinguishing the National Democratic Party, an extremist movement with links to neonazi groups.

But, in June, a German organization of lawyers and lawyers argued that the other far-right party, the Alternative to Germany, was “provenly unconstitutional” and should be banned.

“Perhaps after the Constitutional Court of Germany addresses the issue, you can share this experience with us,” Urbano said.

António Garcia Pereira's complaint also points to the irregularity of the governing bodies of the Enough. In May 2025, the TC confirmed as invalid the elections of the national bodies of Açaz in 2023 and 2024.

However, Maria Benedita Urbano lamented, “Arriva has not yet changed its statutes that have not been approved by the Constitutional Court, have been rejected, and in the meantime has even organized a congress”.

The magistrate said that this case is an example of how “not always decisions of the Constitutional Court are respected, sometimes ignored”.

Urbano said that the Socialist Party also failed to comply with a decision of the TC to reject the expulsion of Daniel Adrião, a former candidate for the leadership of the movement.

In June, the PS claimed that the TC judgment does not require the reintegration of Daniel Adrião and confirmed the opening of a new expulsion process, justified by the need to correct a “formal invaluability”.

Maria Benedita Urbano, who is also a professor at the University of Coimbra, spoke during the 29th Meeting of Public Law Teachers, which is taking place today, for the first time, in Macao, a Chinese region whose justice is based on the Portuguese system.