In view of the judges’ conclusions, Marques Mendes understands that there is no room for dramatization, but rather for doing what is required under the terms of the Constitution.
“The Constitutional Court decided, the Constitutional Court has to be respected and, therefore, this law has to be sent again to the Assembly of the Republic and there introduce these changes that the Court recommends”stated the presidential candidate, insisting: the “decisions of the Constitutional Court are to be respected”.
Refusing to see this decision as a political defeat for the Government, Marques Mendes argued that what happened was “a decision on the conformity, in relation to the Constitution, of some norms”.
Recovering what happened with the law on foreigners, which “also had a problem in the Constitutional Court, but was later easy to correct”, Marques Mendes revealed he was surprised by the ruling, stating that he thought that the “additional sanction, which was in an amendment to the Penal Code, would fall from top to bottom”.
“It’s not about nationality law, it’s about the Penal Code. And then I was surprised because I thought this rule was going to fall, pure and simple (…). The Constitutional Court considers that there are some aspects in which it needs to be corrected, but it accepts the bulk of the column of this rule”he maintained.