Pinto Luz's law is a "measured fact", accuses Cascais councilman

Vopposition erections in the municipal executive of Cascais do not surprise the suspicions about conflicts of interest of Minister Miguel Pinto Luz in the change of urban legislation, but the ruler refused that the diploma was made to his measure.

According to socialist councilman João Ruivo, the amendment of the legal regimes of Urbanization and Edification (RJUE) and Urban Rehabilitation (RJRU), promoted by the current Minister of Housing, Miguel Pinto Luz (PSD), and former vice-president of the House, “has been a tailor-made fact”.

“The group of citizens who tried to fight the construction of the Hilton was waiting for more than a year and a half for the city to give it the documents,” said the mayor, in statements to Lusa, adding that “with the current law, half the time of the possible complaint was spent waiting for the documentation.”.

For this reason, he considered, “it is clearly an attempt to whiten everything that has been done in the past and that now, because of the inability to contest or appeal, they become acquired data”.

From his point of view, “it is necessary to explain very well” the “coincidence of someone who was vice president and alderman who made many decisions and now, who arrived the minister, changed the law to reduce the deadlines in which what he did can be challenged”.

“ Of course, I am not accusing the minister of whatever it is, but it needs to be clarified, because the new law puts really short deadlines for those who want to exercise their right of citizenship”, said Red, advocating that “the residents have the right to question and challenge” decisions that are not “easy to understand”.

“The national PS has now discovered that there is apparently a conflict of interest problem with the Minister of Housing. If he was attentive, he would have known for months or years”, said, for his part, Councilman João Maria Jonet.

The leader of the Jonet – Cascais para Viver movement reiterated to Lusa his criticisms of his campaign for local elections that the social-democratic majority in the municipality, “for a long time, served to cover up a significant part of the PSD apparatus”.

The PS today requested an urgent parliamentary hearing of the Minister of Housing and Infrastructure for suspecting conflict of interest in the approval of the new urban rehabilitation regime, claiming that the ruler may have benefited from these changes, particularly in the case of the Hilton Hotel, in the Wall, which the Public Prosecutor has undertaken.

Also today, the Left Block called for urgent hearing in the Parliament of Miguel Pinto Luz on the RJRU, considering that the diploma raises questions of exemption.

The minister, asked about the news of the magazine Saturday, according to which the new RJUE/RJRU, approved in May by the Government, shortened deadlines to challenge licensing, and could prevent the challenge to decisions taken as vice president of the House of Cascais, made available for clarification in parliament.

“No, it has not been tailor-made, it is a general decree-law. I am absolutely calm with this dimension and I am very happy to go to the Assembly of the Republic, as often as they are understood, I have been many and will continue to go”, said Pinto Luz, asked about it at the press conference after the Council of Ministers.