The final text of the bill was approved in plenary of the Assembly of the Republic with the favourable votes of all parliamentary groups with the exception of PSD and Livre, which abstained.

The IL bill amends two articles, one from the Civil Code, and another from the Civil Procedure Code, which now have the following wording, which confirms the situation of exception for waiving attempts at conciliation: “In cases where one of the spouses is accused or has been convicted of the crime of domestic violence against the spouse requesting the divorce, the latter has the option of waiving the attempt at conciliation”.

According to the report on the specific discussion of the bill, the PSD, which abstained in the final global vote, left some concerns regarding the proposed amendment, with deputy Mónica Quintela defending that it “would promote an escalation of violence, which was precisely what was intended to be avoided”.

The social-democratic deputy also warned of the set of steps contained in the conciliation attempt, namely those related to the rights of children, arguing that the elimination of this conciliation attempt “would imply the proliferation of different incidents and lawsuits to resolve each of the issues , thus preventing a quick decision, a situation that the proposal under discussion neither safeguarded nor resolved”.

She also argued that the attempt at conciliation does not require the presence of the opposing spouses in the same room, being able to be represented by lawyers or being placed in different rooms.