Public Prosecutor’s Office considers immunities unconstitutional

The Public Prosecutor’s Office considers that the parliamentary norms of the Regional Parliament of Madeira are against the Constitution. This does not stop them being applied until they are declared unconstitutional by the Constitutional Tribunal.

The norm, introduced in 1991, that concedes immunity to the President of the Regional Government means that Jardim cannot be constituted ‘arguido’ without Parliamentary approval, a motion the PSD majority has never approved.

According to the Public Prosecutor’s office the judicial authorities or the Criminal Police do not need the Parliament’s authorization to inquire an MP who is constituted ‘arguido’ when the case against him involves crimes liable to prison sentences of three or more years. Nevertheless, the PSD determined not to authorize Miguel Mendonça, chair of the Regional Parliament to be heard in a case in which he is accused by the PND of ‘coercion of an institution’, namely for having an MP physically barred by a hired security firm from entering Parliament and for trying to suspend him unconstitutionally.