Limitation of political rights. The case of the first democratic elections in Portugal (1975)

• Autores: Joana Rebelo Morais
• Localización: Current Issues On Human Rights / coord. por Alexander Sungurov, Carlos R. Fernández Liesa, María del Carmen Barranco Avilés, María Cruz Llamazares Calzadilla, Óscar Pérez de la Fuente, 2020, ISBN 978-84-1324-552-2, págs. 185-194
• Idioma: español
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• Resumen

  • Lustration is a type of transitional justice mechanism commonly adopted in the context of transitions by rupture or collapse to remove individuals associated with the former regime from governments or the military or to prevent them from gaining access to these positions. Nevertheless, the literature on lustration laws rarely looks at one of its many forms: the limitation of political rights. This research aims to contribute to the broader debate about the impact of these measures on democratic consolidation, looking at the case of Portugal. The Portuguese democratization stands out due to its peculiarities. One of them concerns the means of dealing with the past, since the country faced an extremely punitive process that encompassed all types of transitional justice mechanisms. But one question remains unanswered: what was the impact of the ruptured transition on the political rights of the elite of the former authoritarian regime? The electoral law prepared for the first democratic elections, held in April 25th, 1975 – one year after the coup – contemplated several civic incapacities that precluded the participation of the former elite in the electoral act, whether by running or voting for the Constituent Assembly. This law was drafted by a special commission and affected anyone who had worked in the state apparatus – whether leaders or employees – and anyone who served the political police. However, the impact of this law in the preparation and the outcome of the first free elections is still unknown, as well as the roles of the main political actors – and their motivations – behind the writing and the application of the law. At the party level, it is expectable that this law had some impact on the composition of the candidate lists or even on the organization of the parties in the following years. At the procedural level, the plan of action put in place during the entire electoral process to ensure the application of the law in the national territory is unclear – and the potential number of people whose civic rights were limited unknown. At the legacy level, the effect of the limitation of political rights on the configuration of the Constituent Assembly – and therefore, in the Portuguese Constitution – could be relevant. This ongoing investigation is part of a PhD thesis and explores the limitation of political rights in Portugal’s democratization as a lustration process.