In the press conference following the Council of Ministers meeting, Antonio Leitão Amaro was asked if he expects the decrees to be submitted to a new review by the Constitutional Court, after the approval, on 1 April, of a new decree revising the Nationality Law and a new decree amending the Penal Code that provides for the possibility of a judge applying the loss of nationality as an accessory penalty, with votes in favour from PSD, Chega, IL and CDS-PP.

These two decrees were re-evaluated by parliament after the first versions of both had provisions rejected by the Constitutional Court, following a request for preventive review by a group of PS deputies.

“Regarding the nationality law, I will not comment at all nor seek to condition the position of the President of the Republic,” the Minister of the Presidency began by saying.

Leitão Amaro defended, specifically regarding the decree of the nationality law, that the diploma approved by parliament “is constitutionally robust,” saying that this is “the assessment of everyone, including those who voted against the law.”

“In the nationality law, the reasons for unconstitutionality will have disappeared, that is, between what the Constitutional Court has already validated and what it identified as difficult, but solutions have been found that are considered robust,” he said.

The Minister also stressed that the unconstitutionalities identified in the law were “practically all introduced by parliament” in the speciality phase and were not included in the government's proposal.

Regarding the change in the Penal Code, Leitão Amaro began by emphasising that the Constitution has always provided for the possibility of loss of nationality.

“The idea of ​​deprivation of nationality, of citizenship, is in the Constitution. The concrete terms will be defined by the legislator,” he said.

Asked about statements by PSD deputy António Rodrigues, who said that if the part concerning the ancillary sanction is "rejected" by the Constitutional Court, "it won't be the end of the world," the Minister said he did not want to say anything that would "detract from the importance of having this legislation."

Obviously, the cornerstone of this reform is the nationality law; there is no doubt about that. This is an additional, complementary instrument, placed in a separate piece of legislation from the beginning, with the aim of reinforcing and strengthening the coherence of the system," he stated.

"If the Constitution provides for the possibility of deprivation of nationality, and if the Government made the proposal, I'm not going to say now that, as far as we're concerned, it could be rejected," he said.