The former president of the PSD, Rui Rio, considered this Friday night, in an interview with SIC-Notíciasthat the Public Ministry committed “a very serious crime” for not informing the president of the Supreme Court of Justice of seven wiretaps involving the former prime minister, António Costa.
“The law, quite rightly, prohibits wiretapping the Prime Minister without authorization from the President of the Supreme Court of Justice”, argued Rui Rio, to say that, in his opinion, “more than an illegality was committed, a crime was committed”. The former social democratic leader, and now Admiral Gouveia e Melo’s national representative for the Presidency, has always been a critic of the functioning of justice and this interview was no exception: “There was a prosecutor, or two, or three, I don’t know how many, who listened to the Prime Minister without having authorization to do so. Prime Minister, who has phone calls that truly, in terms of the national interest, cannot be listened to by anyone, unless authorized by the President of the Supreme Court.”
For Rui Rio, “if this is true (…), it is a very serious crime”. And he asked: “Who is going to open the investigation to the prosecutors, or to the prosecutor who committed this crime? Who is going to open this investigation? And if it is opened, will it be an investigation that will be carried out in the way it was carried out with all people, or will it be carried out with a collective touch to try to hide something misinterpreted?”, he insisted.
Asked about the clarifications required by António Costa’s defense, the former leader of the opposition to the former socialist prime minister said that these explanations are difficult to believe. “The Public Ministry gives whatever explanations it wants to give, we need to be able to believe it. And given everything that has happened over the last few years in Portugal, I have a lot of difficulty believing in the Public Ministry.”
“It was necessary that everything that the Public Ministry is explaining, or can explain, could be scrutinized. Since it cannot be scrutinized, being closed there, the Public Ministry says what it wants. Truth or lie, it will say what it wants”, pointed out Rui Rio. Therefore, he considers a reform in justice necessary. “The main objective of the Manifesto of the 50 is not to achieve reform A or B or C, it is to raise public awareness of the imperative need to carry out a justice reform (…) because it will only be done on the day that the political parties believe that this will give them votes”, he stated.
According to the former leader, everything depends on whether the parties understand whether this is electorally advantageous: “If we are able to help raise public awareness that this is necessary, the political parties will understand that they either win or lose votes. And this is the only language they understand. I think it’s bad and that’s why I tried to do it differently, but this is the main objective.”