Welcome

You accessed this website to look for information about the Constitutional Court. As the institution’s President, it is my pleasure to welcome you and to fling our doors wide open, because your interest in exercising the right to be informed exactly matches our resolve to make ourselves known as transparently and accurately as possible.

The Constitutional Court is one of the entities that exercise sovereignty in Portugal and is independent of the other seats of state power. Its primary function is to make every effort to ensure that the functions of the state are performed in accordance with the law and to defend the fundamental rights of citizens.

To this end the Constitutional Court has a vast and diverse range of competences whose detailed description is available from the relevant areas of the website and which demonstrate how very important the Court’s role is to the harmonious functioning of our democratic state based on the rule of law.

At the heart of those competences is the review of the constitutionality of laws – a function that involves taking decisions that very often have direct repercussions on citizens’ lives.

To us, the fact that the general public – and not just legal professionals and scholars – knows about the Court’s work and particularly its case law is thus an indispensable instrument for a citizenship that seeks to be responsible and active. Without prejudice to their independence, the Justices of the Constitutional Court feel that it is their duty to be accountable to the community, fully assuming a responsibility that pertains first and foremost to them – that of dismantling the information barriers that make it hard for interested citizens to understand the nature and activities of “their” Constitutional Court.

While not the only one, this website is the most effective means of providing constantly updated information that is both reliable and as complete as possible. This is why the Court has justifiably invested major resources – namely human ones – in it. The continuous attention that my predecessors have paid to the website has led to significant improvements, and this gives us the confidence to say that we have attained a quality that is up to the mission the Court is charged with performing. I will pursue this concern to ensure the website’s renewal whenever it is opportune to do so.

If you feel truly welcome in this home and easily find what you are looking for, everyone who has dedicatedly helped construct it will feel that their efforts have been well rewarded!

Ratton Palace, October 2012

President of the Constitutional Court

(Joaquim de Sousa Ribeiro)

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