Portugal is a European country located on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean, sharing a border with Spain. The population of this country is approx 1,04,67,366 with 92,225 square kilometers area. The official language is Portuguese. About 92% are ethnically Portuguese, and 7% are permanent foreign nationals. 84% are Christians, almost all are Catholics. 14% of citizens do not believe in any religion.
Poland's constitution is one of the best constitutions in the world. Many important things have been included in the constitution. The declaration of a state of emergency gives the authorities the power and responsibility to take appropriate action necessary for the immediate restoration of constitutional normality. No one shall be a member of more than one political party at the same time. Political parties shall be governed by principles of transparency, democratic organization and management and participation of all their members. Advertising will be highly transparent; any ads with hidden conditions are prohibited. Poland's constitution places special emphasis on health and workers' rights. The authorities will ensure that not only housing facilities, but also that they are built at low cost, and have adequate transport and social facilities. The effort to take measures so that no one cannot spend a long time in political positions is noteworthy.
Trade unions shall be governed by principles of democratic organization and management, established by secret ballot and based on active workers' participation in every aspect. Trade unions are independent from employers, the state, religious communities, and political parties.
These are positive aspects. Now let's discuss the negative aspects.
According to Article 34 "No one shall enter any person's home at night without his consent." Doest it mean that entering without permission during the day is legal? According to Article 35 “The allocation of a single national number to any citizen shall be prohibited.” How would the Authority protect everyone's identity and rights then? The first condition of a society free from crime and corruption is to ensure the identity of every citizen.
Admirable Articles of Portugal's Constitution
Article 3. Sovereignty and legality (Part of it)
● The state shall be subject to this Constitution and shall be based on the democratic rule of law.
Article 12. Principle of universality
● Every citizen shall enjoy the rights and be subject to the duties enshrined in this Constitution.
● Bodies corporate shall enjoy such rights and be subject to such duties as are compatible with their nature.
Article 19. Suspension of the exercise of rights (Part of it)
● Declarations of a state of siege or a state of emergency shall grant the public authorities the power and responsibility to take the appropriate steps needed to promptly restore constitutional normality.
Article 20. Access to law and effective judicial protection (Part of it)
● Everyone shall be guaranteed access to the law and the courts in order to defend those of his rights and interests that are protected by law, and justice shall not be denied to anyone due to lack of financial means.
● The law shall define and ensure adequate protection of the secrecy of legal proceedings.
● Everyone shall possess the right to secure a ruling in any suit to which he is a party, within a reasonable period of time and by means of fair process.
Article 26. Other personal rights
● Everyone shall possess the right to a personal identity, to the development of their personality, to civil capacity, to citizenship, to a good name and reputation, to their likeness, to speak out, to protect the privacy of their personal and family life, and to legal protection against any form of discrimination.
● The law shall lay down effective guarantees against the procurement and misuse of information concerning persons and families and its use contrary to human dignity.
● The law shall guarantee the personal dignity and genetic identity of the human person, particularly in the creation, development and use of technologies and in scientific experimentation.
● Deprivation of citizenship and restrictions on civil capacity may only occur in such cases and under such terms as may be provided for by law, and shall not be based on political motives.
Article 29. Application of criminal law (Part of it)
● No one shall be sentenced under the criminal law unless the action or omission in question is punishable under the terms of a pre-existing law, nor shall any person be the object of a security measure unless the prerequisites therefore are laid down by a pre-existing law.
Article 30. Limits on sentences and security measures (Part of it)
● Criminal liability shall not be transferable.
Article 37. Freedom of expression and information
● Everyone shall possess the right to freely express and publicise his thoughts in words, images or by any other means, as well as the right to inform others, inform himself and be informed without hindrance or discrimination.
● Exercise of the said rights shall not be hindered or limited by any type or form of censorship.
● Infractions committed in the exercise of the said rights shall be subject to the general principles of the criminal law or the law governing administrative offences, and shall be brought before the courts of law or an independent administrative body respectively, as laid down by law.
● Every person and body corporate shall be equally and effectively guaranteed the right of reply and to make corrections, as well as the right to compensation for damages suffered.
Article 42. Freedom of cultural creation
● Intellectual, artistic and scientific creation shall not be restricted.
● This freedom shall comprise the right to invent, produce and publicise scientific, literary and artistic works and shall include the protection of copyright by law.
Article 46. Freedom of association
● Citizens shall possess the right to freely associate with one another without requiring any authorisation, on condition that such associations are not intended to promote violence and their purposes are not contrary to the criminal law.
● Associations shall pursue their purposes freely and without interference from the public authorities and shall not be dissolved by the state or have their activities suspended, except in such cases as the law may provide for and then only by judicial order.
● No one shall be obliged to belong to an association, or be coerced to remain therein by any means.
● Armed associations, military, militarised or paramilitary-type associations and organisations that are racist or display a fascist ideology shall not be permitted.
Article 48. Participation in public life
● Every citizen shall possess the right to take part in political life and the direction of the country's public affairs, either directly or via freely elected representatives.
● Every citizen shall possess the right to be given objective clarifications about the actions of the state and of other public bodies and to be informed by the Government and other authorities about the management of public affairs.
Article 51. Political associations and parties
● Freedom of association shall include the right to form or take part in political associations and parties and through them to work jointly and democratically towards the formation of the popular will and the organisation of political power.
● No one shall be simultaneously registered as a member of more than one political party, and no one shall be deprived of the exercise of any right because he is or ceases to be registered as a member of any legally constituted party.
● Without prejudice to the philosophy or ideology that underlies their manifestoes, political parties shall not employ names that contain expressions which are directly related to any religion or church, or emblems that can be confused with national or religious symbols.
● No party shall be formed with a name or manifesto that possesses a regional nature or scope.
● Political parties shall be governed by the principles of transparency, democratic organisation and management, and participation by all their members.
● The law shall lay down the rules governing the financing of political parties, particularly as regards the requirements for and limits on public funding, as well as the requirements to publicise their assets and accounts.
Article 54. Workers' committees
● Workers shall possess the right to form workers' committees to defend their interests and democratically intervene in company life.
● Decisions to form workers' committees shall be taken by the workers in question, who shall approve the committees' by-laws and shall elect their members by direct, secret ballot.
● Coordinating committees may be created with a view to improving intervention in economic restructuring and to guaranteeing workers' interests.
● Committee members shall enjoy the legal protection accorded to trade union delegates.
● Workers' committees shall possess the right:
● To receive all the information needed to perform their tasks;
● To monitor the management of businesses;
● To participate in corporate restructuring processes, especially in relation to training actions or when working conditions are altered;
● To take part in drawing up labour legislation and economic and social plans that address their sector;
● To manage, or participate in the management of, businesses' social activities;
● To promote the election of workers' representatives to the management bodies of businesses that belong to the state or other public bodies, as laid down by law.
Article 55. Freedoms concerning trade unions (Part of it)
● Workers shall be free to form and operate trade unions as a condition and guarantee of the building of their unity in defence of their rights and interests.
● In exercising their freedom to form and operate trade unions, workers shall particularly be guaranteed the following, without any discrimination:
● Freedom to form trade unions at every level;
● Freedom of membership. No worker shall be obliged to pay dues to a union to which he does not belong;
● Freedom to determine the organisation and internal regulations of trade unions;
● The right to engage in trade union activities in businesses;
● The right to political views, in the forms laid down in the respective by-laws.
● Trade unions shall be governed by the principles of democratic organisation and management, to be based on periodic elections of their managing bodies by secret ballot, without the need for any authorisation or homologation, and shall be founded on active worker participation in every aspect of trade union activity.
● Trade unions shall be independent of employers, the state, religious denominations, and parties and other political associations, and the law shall lay down such guarantees as may be appropriate to that independence, which is fundamental to the unity of the working classes.
● Workers' elected representatives shall enjoy the right to be informed and consulted, as well as to adequate legal protection against any form of subjection to conditions, constraints or limitations in the legitimate exercise of their functions.
Article 58. Right to work
● Everyone shall possess the right to work.
● In order to ensure the right to work, the state shall be charged with promoting:
● The implementation of full-employment policies;
● Equal opportunities in the choice of profession or type of work, and the conditions needed to avoid the gender-based preclusion or limitation of access to any position, work or professional category;
● Cultural and technical training and vocational development for workers.
Article 59. Workers' rights
● Regardless of age, sex, race, citizenship, place of origin, religion and political and ideological convictions, every worker shall possess the right:
● To the remuneration of his work in accordance with its volume, nature and quality, with respect for the principle of equal pay for equal work and in such a way as to guarantee a proper living;
● That work be organised in keeping with social dignity and in such a way as to provide personal fulfilment and to make it possible to reconcile professional and family life;
● To work in conditions that are hygienic, safe and healthy;
● To rest and leisure time, a maximum limit on the working day, a weekly rest period and periodic paid holidays;
● To material assistance when he involuntarily finds himself unemployed;
● To assistance and fair reparation when he is the victim of a work-related accident or occupational illness.
● The state shall be charged with ensuring the working, remuneratory and rest-related conditions to which workers are entitled, particularly by:
● Setting and updating a national minimum wage which, among other factors, shall have particular regard to workers' needs, increases in the cost of living, the level to which the sectors of production have developed, the requirements imposed by economic and financial stability, and the accumulation of capital for development purposes;
● Setting national limits on working hours;
● Ensuring special work-related protection for women during pregnancy and following childbirth, as well as for minors, the disabled and those whose occupations are particularly strenuous or take place in unhealthy, toxic or dangerous conditions;
● In cooperation with social organisations, ensuring the systematic development of a network of rest and holiday centres;
● Protecting emigrant workers' working conditions and guaranteeing their social benefits;
● Protecting student workers' working conditions.
● Salaries shall enjoy special guarantees, as laid down by law.
Article 60. Consumer rights
● Consumers shall possess the right to the good quality of the goods and services consumed, to training and information, to the protection of health, safety and their economic interests, and to reparation for damages.
● Advertising shall be regulated by law and all forms of concealed, indirect or fraudulent advertising shall be prohibited.
● Consumers' associations and consumer cooperatives shall possess the right, as laid down by law, to receive support from the state and to be heard in relation to consumer-protection issues, and shall possess legitimatio ad causam in defence of their members or of any collective or general interests.
Article 63. Social security and solidarity (Part of it)
● Everyone shall have the right to social security.
● The state shall be charged with organising, coordinating and subsidising a unified and decentralised social security system, with the participation of the trade unions, other organisations that represent workers and associations that represent any other beneficiaries.
● The social security system shall protect citizens in illness and old age and when they are disabled, widowed or orphaned, as well as when they are unemployed or in any other situation that entails a lack of or reduction in means of subsistence or ability to work.
● All periods of work shall, as laid down by law, contribute to the calculation of old age and disability pensions, regardless of the sector of activity in which they were performed.
Article 64. Health
● Everyone shall possess the right to health protection and the duty to defend and promote health.
● The right to health protection shall be fulfilled:
● By means of a national health service that shall be universal and general and, with particular regard to the economic and social conditions of the citizens who use it, shall tend to be free of charge;
● By creating economic, social, cultural and environmental conditions that particularly guarantee the protection of childhood, youth and old age; by systematically improving living and working conditions and also promoting physical fitness and sport at school and among the people; and by developing both the people's health and hygiene education and healthy living practises.
● In order to ensure enjoyment of the right to the protection of health, the state shall be under a primary duty:
● To guarantee access by every citizen, regardless of his economic situation, to preventive, curative and rehabilitative medical care;
● To guarantee a rational and efficient nationwide coverage in terms of healthcare units and human resources;
● To work towards the public funding of the costs of medical care and medicines;
● To regulate and inspect corporate and private forms of medicine and articulate them with the national health service, in such a way as to ensure adequate standards of efficiency and quality in both public and private healthcare institutions;
● To regulate and control the production, distribution, marketing, sale and use of chemical, biological and pharmaceutical products and other means of treatment and diagnosis;
● To establish policies for the prevention and treatment of drug abuse.
● The national health service shall possess a decentralised and participatory management system.
Article 65. Housing and urban planning (Part of it)
● Everyone shall possess the right for themselves and their family to have an adequately sized dwelling that provides them with hygienic and comfortable conditions and preserves personal and family privacy.
● In order to ensure enjoyment of the right to housing, the state shall be charged with:
● Planning and implementing a housing policy that is embodied in general town and country planning documents and supported by urban planning documents that guarantee the existence of an adequate network of transport and social facilities;
● In cooperation with the autonomous regions and local authorities, promoting the construction of low-cost and social housing;
● Stimulating private construction, subject to the general interest, and access to owned or rented housing;
● Encouraging and supporting local community initiatives that work towards the resolution of their housing problems and foster the formation of housing and self-building cooperatives.
● The state shall undertake a policy that works towards the establishment of a rental system which is compatible with family incomes and access to individual housing.
● Interested parties shall be entitled to participate in the drawing up of urban planning instruments and any other physical town and country planning instruments.
Article 84. Public domain (Part of it)
● The following shall belong to the public domain:
● Territorial waters, together with their beds and the adjacent seabed, and such lakes, lagoons and watercourses as are suitable for navigation or flotation, together with their beds;
● Airspace over Portuguese territory, above the recognised limit for proprietary or surface rights;
● Mineral deposits, mineral and medicinal water sources and natural subterranean cavities below the ground, save such rocks, ordinary earth and other materials as may habitually be used for construction;
● Roads;
● National railway lines;
● Such other property as may be classified as such by law.
Article 117. Status of political officeholders
● Political officeholders shall be politically, civilly and criminally liable for their actions and omissions in the exercise of their functions.
● The law shall lay down both the duties, responsibilities, liabilities and incompatibilities of political office and the consequences of any breach thereof, and the rights, privileges and immunities that apply thereto.
● The law shall specify the special crimes for which political officeholders may be held liable, together with the applicable penalties and the effects thereof, which may include removal from office or loss of seat.
Article 118. Renewal principle
● No one shall hold any national, regional or local political office for life.
● The law may specify limits on successive renewals of mandates of holders of executive political office.
Article 123. Eligibility for re-election
● Re-election to a third consecutive term of office, or during the five years immediately following the end of a second consecutive term of office, shall not be permitted.
● In the event that the President of the Republic resigns, he shall not stand again in the next elections, or in any that take place in the five years immediately following his resignation.
Article 254. Share in revenue from direct taxes
● Municipalities shall share in the revenue from direct taxes by right and as laid down by law.
● Municipalities shall possess their own tax revenues, as laid down by law.
Facts of Portugal's Constitution
Article 3. Sovereignty and legality (Part of it)
● The validity of laws and other acts of the state, the autonomous regions, local government and any other public bodies shall be dependent on their conformity with this Constitution.
Article 6. Unitary state
● The state shall be unitary and shall be organised and function in such a way as to respect the autonomous island system of self-government and the principles of subsidiarity, the autonomy of local authorities and the democratic decentralisation of the Public Administration.
● The Azores and Madeira archipelagos shall be autonomous regions with their own political and administrative statutes and self-government institutions.
Article 34. Inviolability of home and correspondence (Part of it)
● No one shall enter any person's home at night without his consent, save in situations of flagrante delicto, or with judicial authorisation in cases of especially violent or highly organised crime, including terrorism and trafficking in persons, arms or narcotics, as laid down by law.
Article 35. Use of computers
● Computers shall not be used to treat data concerning philosophical or political convictions, party or trade union affiliations, religious beliefs, private life or ethnic origins, save with the express consent of the datasubject, with authorisation provided for by law and with guarantees of nondiscrimination, or for the purpose of processing statistical data that cannot be individually identified.
● Third-party access to personal data shall be prohibited, save in exceptional cases provided for by law.
● The allocation of a single national number to any citizen shall be prohibited.
