Case of the twins: PGR rejects sending letters of request to Brazil to hear the children’s father and Marcelo’s daughter-in-law
The Consultative Council of the Attorney General’s Office (PGR) rejected sending letters of request to Brazil seeking to hear the father of the Portuguese-Brazilian twins and the partner of the President of the Republic’s son, following requests from the parliamentary commission of inquiry. According to an opinion signed by former PGR Lucília Gago, to which Lusa had access, the parliamentary inquiry does not have judicial powers, producing no “effects on the international legal order”.
In the 91-page document, which was requested by Lucília Gago “urgently” in September, the PGR maintains that between Portugal and Brazil “there is no international convention, bilateral or multilateral, that provides for the extension of judicial cooperation instruments to parliamentary inquiries and the investigative powers of the committees that carry them out”.
The PGR’s position on letters rogatory – requests to a third country to carry out measures – was confirmed to Lusa after the information was provided by TVI/CNN Portugal.
In September, Lucília Gago had “urgently” requested an opinion on the request from the parliamentary commission of inquiry into the twins’ case for letters of request to be sent to Brazil with a view to hearing the children’s father and Juliana Drummond, Nuno Rebelo de Sousa’s companion .
This Tuesday, the president of the parliamentary commission of inquiry, Rui Paulo Sousa, told Lusa that the PGR’s spirit of collaboration “was completely ignored”.
“It has been ignored since the last opinion, in which the PGR added a favorable opinion, talking about the communications issue — WhatsApp, etc. –, and then later a new opinion from the PGR itself, which says everything opposite to the look original. […] Now, they say they are not fulfilling our request”, he highlighted. The Chega deputy also indicated that “some of the arguments” used in the PGR’s opinion “are completely absurd”when the purpose of the commission’s request is to “locate witnesses.”
“We have already tried all means — embassies and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs — and it was impossible. The last means that exists in the law is precisely this”, he observed.
Rui Paulo Sousa also condemned the justification that the PGR gives for not recognizing the role of parliamentary commissions of inquiry, saying that they “enjoy the investigative powers of the judicial authorities”.
“Commissions are entitled to assistance from judicial authorities, criminal police bodies, administrative authorities, on the same terms as courts and so on. Therefore, our request is perfectly legitimate,” he said, citing article 13 on the powers of commissions .
The president of the commission also said that “the correct thing would be to send it to a court, take it to a judge with the power to decide whether to grant or reject the request.” “I can accept that. Now, the Public Prosecutor’s Office doesn’t even take the request because I think it’s really a total lack of collaboration with the parliamentary commission of inquiry“, he defended.
To Lusa, Rui Paulo Sousa recalled that the commission is already mandated to issue letters rogatory, adding that it will “proceed with this objective”. “I have already given orders in this regard to the commission, to the legal services, to prepare the direct sending of the request to a court, which can accept it or not. And if it accepts it, it will be taken to a judge, who will say yes or no. Which was, Basically, what the Public Ministry should have done”, he highlighted.
Lusa/End
