Parliament approves creation of eventual commission to debate anti-corruption measures
The Assembly of the Republic approved this Friday, with the PCP abstaining, the creation of a possible commission to monitor the implementation and monitoring of the anti-corruption agenda, which should operate until the end of the legislature. “At the end of its mandate, the Commission presents a report on its activity, which must contain the conclusions of its work”, states the draft resolution, presented by the PSD and which had been announced by Prime Minister Luís Montenegro, in June .
At the end of the plenary, PCP, BE and Livre made oral statements to criticize the multiplication of occasional parliamentary committees — which added to the permanent ones already totals 18, in the current legislature.
“The PSD is not unaware that there are parliamentary groups with 8 deputies, with five, two groups with four deputies and a single deputy, which means that it prefers that parliamentary committees operate in a tripartite regime, only with PSD, PS and Chega”, he criticized Antonio Filipe, in an argument corroborated by the parliamentary leaders of BE, Fabian Figueiredo, and Livre, Isabel Mendes Lopes.
On the contrary, only Chega’s parliamentary leader, Pedro Pinto, spoke during this period of debate, saying that “these are the costs of democracy”.
One of the first measures decided by the current executive, in a Council of Ministers on April 3 – one day after taking office – was to mandate the Minister of Justice, Rita Alarcão Júdice, to speak to all parties with parliamentary seats, agents from the justice and civil society with a view to developing a package of measures against corruption, within 60 days.
“This process culminated in the approval, in the Council of Ministers on June 20, 2024, of the Anti-Corruption Agendaa set of more than 30 measures that aim to make preventing and combating this type of crime more effective, and which is based on four essential pillars: prevention, effective punishment, procedural speed and protection of the public sector”, states the resolution.
The PSD justifies the creation of this eventual commission “given that the Most of the measures contained in the Anti-Corruption Agenda require approval in parliament” and argues that deputies must also monitor “the implementation, by the Government, of the Anti-Corruption Agenda measures that will be implemented by it”.
In the text, the objective of this eventual commission is defined as “the integrated analysis of solutions aimed at reinforcing transparency, preventing and combating corruption, including the implementation of the legislative measures contained in the Anti-Corruption Agenda”.
The commission “is competent to assess legislative initiatives that concern the matters that constitute the object of its activity” and must “collect contributions and hold hearings from entities linked to the justice sector, organizations, entities and personalities from society civil society”, and may also carry out hearings with the various members of the Government with sectoral responsibility for the implementation of the Anti-Corruption Agenda and other entities that it deems useful.
The “anti-corruption agenda” includes a “new mechanism for extended confiscation of assets” in some cases without conviction, measures to protect whistleblowers and the expansion of reward mechanisms.
The regulation of lobbying, the recording of interactions with external entities throughout the legislative process and the strengthening of the State’s internal control are other measures planned.
