Constitutional Court of Portugal

17 CONSTITUTIONAL COURT OF PORTUGAL Court a quo – Appeal – Admission of appeal Appeal received by the Court Preliminary analysis Summary decision by single justice Appellant’s representations Respondent’s representations Ruling of conference or chamber Draft Ruling Debate and vote in Chamber Chamber Ruling Possibility of challenge before conference of justices. Whole chamber may intervene PROCEDURAL DETAILS OF A CONCRETE REVIEW CASE A request for review must always specify: – The norm or norms the Court is being asked to consider; – The constitutional norms or principles the applicant believes to have been violated. The Court can only consider the norms it is asked to; it can never consider the constitutionality of norms on its own initiative. However, it can declare the unconstitutionality of norms that have been brought before it on grounds that are different from those invoked in the request. The Constitutional Court does not review decisions taken by other courts or any other organ; it reviews the constitutionality of norms , as they have been applied (or as the court has refused to apply them) in a concrete case. Effects of the decision The Constitutional Court’s decision constitutes res judicata (i.e. definitively decides the question of constitutionality) in the respective case. It should be noted that the Constitutional Court never decides the concrete case that is the object of the proceedings; it only decides the question of constitutionality that has been raised in that case. Once the Constitutional Court has given its decision, the case returns to the court it came from, so that the latter can proceed in accordance with the Constitutional Court’s judgement on the question of constitutionality. Unlike what happens with abstract reviews (where, as we have seen, decisions possess generally binding force), in a concrete review the decision is only valid for the concrete case in question. Having said this, once the Constitutional Court has held a given norm unconstitutional in three concrete cases, the norm can be declared unconstitutional with generally binding force.