HAS SIC NewsFernanda Marques Lopes considered that Garcia Pereira’s complaint is legitimate and reiterated that “the party does not present an updated list of its national bodies and this, according to party law, is one of the reasons for requesting its extinction”. And he explains that, while the Garcia Pereira’s first complaint based on an alleged continued practice of racism by Chega may not be consequential, this latest process ends up having a more solid legal basis.
“Of the complaints that I know of, one was from Dr. Ana Gomes and the other from Dr. Garcia Pereira. Both were based on paragraph a) of number 1 of article 18 of the Law on Political Parties, which speaks of fascist, racist or xenophobic stances. This is a more political issue than a legal one. But now it is about something much simpler: the failure to communicate to the Constitutional Court an updated list of national bodies. I think that, therefore, this last complaint can even proceed”, he stated.
Pedro Pinto and André Ventura
NUNO VEIGA/LUSA
The most recent complaint against Chega is based on the fact that the party has exceeded the maximum period of six years to present a updated list of its national leaders— something that, according to the law on political parties, can result in the extinction of political formation.
Marques Lopes, a lawyer who has known André Ventura for more than two decades, since his high school days, is well aware of Chega’s difficulties in complying with the regulations that parties must comply with, as it was his complaint, in October last year, that led the Constitutional Court to invalidate the election of bodies at the fifth party convention. These requests for objection ‘earned’ party member no. 3 compensation for sexist insults by deputy João Tilly, as Expresso reported in January this year.
The lawyer accused Chega, the party where she still operates and remains a voice of challenge to André Ventura’s leadership, of experiencing “an internal legal turmoil”, but maintains hope that Chega “can return to the legality that it has not followed in recent years”.
“The ridiculous thing is that the president of the party himself, who proclaims that the law must be complied with, is the first to not comply with it. If by chance André Ventura sees his party extinct for this reason, he will not be able to complain about anyone else but himself”, he commented in the same interview with SIC.