Mensagem ao Cavaco!

Part 1: Fundamental guarantees

1. The Portuguese Nation
2. The Citizen
3. The Family
4. Moral and Economic Corporations
5. The Family, the Corporations and the Local Authorities as Political Bodies
6. Public Opinion
7. Political, Civil and Administrative Order
8. Economic and Social Order
9. Education, Instruction and National Culture
10. Relations with the Catholic Church and other Religions
11. The Public and Private Domains of the State
12. National Defence
13. The Administration of Collective Interests
14. State Finances

Section 1 - The Portuguese Nation

Article 1

Portugal's territory is that currently belonging to the Portuguese nation, viz:

• In Europe: continental Portugal and the archipelagos of Madeira and of the Azores;
• In western Africa: The archipelago of Cape Verde, Guinea, Sao Tome and Principe and its dependencies, St John the Baptist of Ajuda, Cabinda and Angola;
• In eastern Africa: Mozambique
• In Asia: The State of India and Macau and their dependencies;
• In Oceania: Timor and its dependencies;

The nation does not renounce the rights it presently has or may come to have over any other territory. 

Article 2

No part of the national territory can be acquired by a foreign power or public body, except for the installation of diplomatic or consular representations where these arrangements are reciprocated with the Portuguese state.

Article 3

The Portuguese nation is composed of all Portuguese citizens resident within and outside its territory, and who are considered dependants of the state and subject to Portuguese law except in those cases where international law applies.

Foreigners visiting or residing within Portuguese territory are also subjects of the state and to Portuguese law, without prejudice to the conceptions of international law.

Article 4

The Portuguese nation is an independent state whose sovereignty is limited internally by morality and law; and externally, by the conventions and treaties that are freely entered into or by consensual rights freely accepted obliging the Portuguese nation to co-operate with other states in the preparation and adoption of measures to further peace between peoples and the progress of humankind.

Portugal recognises that arbitration is the best means for resolving international litigation.

Article 5

The Portuguese state is unitary and corporative, based on the equality of all citizens before the law, in the free access of all classes to the benefits of civilisation and in the right of all of the nation's structural elements to be involved in administrative life and in the creation of laws. 

Equality before the law involves the right to be tested for public employment, according to the capacity or the service to be offered, and the rejection of and privilege of birth, nobility, noble title, gender, or social condition, except, in relation to women, those differences that are as a result of nature and for the good of the family, and, as for the charges or advantages of the citizenry, those differences that are imposed by the diversity of circumstance or by the natural order of things.

Article 6

The state has the following duties:

• To promote moral unity and to establish judicial order within the nation, defining and ensuring compliance with the rights and guarantees that are a result of nature or of law, in favour of the individual, the family, the local authorities and the moral and economic corporations;
• To co-ordinate, encourage and direct all social activities, ensuring the dominance of a just harmony of interests with the legitimate subordination of the particular to the general;
• To strive to improve the condition of the less favoured social classes, preventing them from falling below the minimum level necessary for sufficient human existence.

Back to top

Section 2 - The Citizen

Article 7

Civil law will determine how to acquire and how to lose Portuguese citizen status. Portuguese citizens will enjoy the rights and guarantees attributed to them by the constitution, except in respect of those who are naturalised where restrictions established by law will apply. 

Foreign residents in Portugal will enjoy the same rights and guarantees, except where the law states to the contrary. Excepted from this are those political and public rights that bring a charge upon the state. However, if such rights are granted to Portuguese citizens by a foreign power, then the rule of reciprocity will apply.

Article 8

The rights and guarantees of Portuguese citizens are as follows:

• The right to life and personal integrity;
• Freedom and inviolability of religious belief and practice. No-one may be persecuted, or cause anyone to be persecuted, deprived of any rights, or excluded from any obligation or civil duty because of their religious beliefs. No-one will be obliged to divulge their professed religion in any census or other statistical enquiry established by law;
• Freedom of thought and expression in any form;
• Freedom of education;
• The inviolability of the home and of correspondence in terms to be determined by law;
• Freedom to choose one's profession or type of work, industry or commerce, except in those areas where legal restrictions are imposed for the common good, and those that are excluded for distribution by the state and administrative bodies for motives of recognised public utility in accordance with the law;
• Not to be deprived of personal freedom or imprisoned without guilt having been established, except in those cases outlined in subsections (8.20.c) and (8.20.d) below;
• Not to receive a criminal sentence other than in virtue of an existing law that declares the act or ommission punishable;
• The right to legal representation, which will provide the necessary defence guarantees for the accused person both before and after the assessment of guilt;
• The right not to be penalised to either perpetual corporal or to capital punishment except in the face of battle during times of declared war;
• Not to have one's goods confiscated or to be penalised for the guilt of others;
• Not to be imprisoned for failure to pay debts or taxes;
• Freedom of association;
• The right to own property and to transfer that property in life or after death in accordance with the civil law;
• The right not to pay taxes that have not been established in harmony with the constitution;
• The right to receive reparations in respect of any injury caused by acts or omissions that are punishable by law. When these injuries are of a moral nature, the law permits that punitive damages may be sought;
• The right to representation and of petition, complaint and objection in defence of one's own rights or those of the community before any sovereign body or authority;
• The right to refuse any instructions that infringe upon one's individual guarantees, when these guarantees are not legally suspended, and to repell by force any personal aggressor when it is not possible to seek the aid of the public authorities;
• The right to have criminal sentences reviewed by one's peers in accordance with processes established by law, and ensuring that the Public purse is indemnified for any losses or damages.

The specification of these rights and guarantees does not exclude any others that are in harmony with the constitution and the law, and are granted on the understanding that the citizenry will always exercise them without offending the rights of third parties or without injuring the societal interests or the principles of morality.

Special laws will regulate the exercise of the rights to freedoms of expression, thought, association and education. In,the first case, laws will allow the prevention or repression of any attempt to pervert public opinion in its role as a social force, and to safeguard the moral integrity of the citizenry who will be assured of their right to seek free redress or defence in the newspaper or magazine that caused the injury or libel, without prejudicing their right to seek further redress through proceedings determined by law.

Prison without the prior determination of guilt is authorised for those caught in flagrant delict of the following crimes, whether committed, frustrated or otherwise attempted: crimes against the security of the state; forgery of coin, banknotes or titles to public debt; murder; domestic burglary or robbery; abuse of confidence, burglary or robbery when practised by a recidivist; fraud; arson; the manufacture, storage or use of bombs and other explosive devices.

In addition to those cases indicated in the previous paragraph, imprisonment in a public prison, house arrest or detention in a detention centre can only be effected with an order in writing from the competent authority.

Habeus Corpus may be used against the abuse of power in those circumstances described by law.

Article 9

Any employee of the State, of the corporative and administrative bodies or of a company that has a contract with one or other such body, is guaranteed the right to retain his position during his period og obligatory military service.

Article 10

None of the sovereign organisations, either alone or in concert, may suspend this constitution or restrict the rights that are granted from it except in those situations that the constitution allows.

Back to top

Section 3 - The Family

Article 11

The State will ensure the constitution and defence of the family, as the basis for the conservation and development of the race, as the primary foundation for education, discipline and social harmony, and as the foundation of political order through its aggregation and representation in the parish and in the municipality.