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The government assures that the “rejection” of the Portuguese judge for the European court is illegal

by AI | 01.Nov 2024 | Europe in brief AI

Paulo Rangel argued that the need for 20 years of experience for Gonçalo Almeida Ribeiro is not mandatory.

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The Foreign Minister considered today that the “rejection” of Judge Gonçalo Almeida Ribeiro for the Court of Justice of the European Union is illegal, as the criterion presented is not part of the EU treaty’s functioning.

It is the treaties that define the requirements for [the appointment] of judges, not the European evaluation “committee”, emphasized Paulo Rangel, who is being heard in the parliamentary committee of European Affairs on the matter.

“The [functioning] treaty does not mention, anywhere, the obligation for the candidate to have 20 years of experience,” said the minister, pointing out that this condition does not apply to magistrates serving in high courts but rather to legal advisors.

In the case of Gonçalo Almeida Ribeiro, the need to have 20 years of experience is not mandatory, as the judge is currently vice-president of the Constitutional Court, Paulo Rangel stated.

The minister also reminded the parties present in the parliamentary committee that the candidates presented by the Government were ratified by the Assembly of the Republic, so “in case of rejection, it is the Assembly that is also at stake, not just the Government.”

Ensuring that he supports the existence of an evaluation committee, the minister admitted being surprised by the process used, as “in cases where the committee refuses [a candidate], it usually warns the State beforehand, which it did not do” with Portugal.

The reason for this warning not being given, he considered, was “there was no decision to refuse.”

“There was a great division [in the evaluation committee] and it ended up not making a decision,” he said.

Anticipating that the situation “will have consequences,” Paulo Rangel recounted that in the discussion in the committee, the 27 Member States were represented and that “25 agreed with Portugal’s position.”

The States “thought that, first, the opinion is not binding and, second, that, having used a merely formal criterion [for the negative position], the Portuguese State should have been alerted to know if it wished to withdraw its application,” he stated.

The situation, which the Foreign Minister classified as “unacceptable,” ended with “the 26 States proposing that, in order not to create a precedent, the opinion should be respected with the counterpart that the committee president be called to the intergovernmental committee to explain and discuss the application of the criterion in the future.”

Rangel also recalled that the president of the Court of Justice of the EU joined that institution at the age of 38, so he did not yet have 20 years of experience, and that the evaluation committee made “the highest praises to the candidate” who has been serving for nine years as vice-president of the Constitutional Court.

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