The bill, which Lusa had access to and which the party classifies as “a legislative innovation”, alters the Retirement Statute in the article on monthly remuneration.

"If the beneficiaries have held public or political positions and have been convicted of crimes of corruption, influence peddling or embezzlement, the pension to which they are entitled will suffer a definitive cut between 25 percent and 75 percent of its value”, proposes Chega in the draft law.

The party also adds that, "if the effective penalty applied is greater than five years of imprisonment, the beneficiary will suffer a cut of never less than 50 percent in the value definitively attributed, and may reach 75 percent if the beneficiary has seriously harmed the public purse or the integrity of the public functions”.

The bill also provides that "under no circumstances may the beneficiary earn, after the cuts, a final net value lower than the national minimum wage" and safeguards that these can only be applied "after the final conviction for the crimes".

The party includes this bill in an attempt to reform the Social Security that, according to Chega, several Governments tried to do “unfortunately always without great success”.

"The alteration that is now being undertaken is essentially related to applying a basic rule of justice: those who seriously harmed the public purse or the public functions entrusted to them must be punished in the legal attribution of the amount of the pension", justifies Chega.

"What is intended with this legal change is precisely to articulate the legal-criminal system, as well as the evolution of social perception and the existing scrutiny regarding the exercise of public functions, given the current pension system", defends the party.

At the end of June, with abstentions from the PSD, CDS-PP, PAN and the deputy Cristina Rodrigues, a bill from Chega to aggravate the minimum and maximum penal frameworks for the crimes of passive and active corruption was rejected by the parliament.

The last meeting session before the holidays also confirmed the rejection of Chega's constitutional revision project, which, among other matters, wanted to introduce a lifetime impediment from holding public office for those convicted of corruption.