For both Article 88 (expression of interest route) and Article 90A (ARI) one of the requirements is proof of legal entry to the national territory. I’m fairly certain that for both cases, this legal entry referred to precedes the very first application - registration on the SAPA or ARI portal respectively (not biometrics, which happens much later).
At the time I was applying (2018/19) I had the distinct impression you need a proof of legal entry to even start the application. My lawyer carefully made copies of all visas and entry stamps of visits preceding the first stage of the application (where you upload docs into the portal and wait for pre-approval), and the biometrics visit; what proofs were submitted to SEF I don’t know.
That’s why the new law states that “…provided the residency submission is finally approved and results a resident card”. It is very concrete statement here. Once your application was approved, that means you must have submitted all necessary documents (including stamp on passport to prove the legal entry) beforehand.
Without having resident card in hand, the counting time does not exist.
Once the resident card is issued, implicitly all legal checks are met and “hopfully” we are allowed to apply from the first day of submission.
4 - Para os efeitos de contagem de prazos de residência legal previstos na presente lei, considera-se igualmente o tempo decorrido desde o momento em que foi requerida a autorização de residência temporária, desde que a mesma venha a ser deferida.
4 - For the purposes of counting the legal residence periods provided for in this law, the time elapsed since the temporary residence permit was applied for shall also be taken into account, provided that it is granted.
…in their view:
The GV is a temporary residence permit for investment, so it qualifies as “temporary residence permit” under the terms of article 15 of the nationality law. If the law isn’t changed again in the meantime, there is no doubt that this will apply to you, provided, of course, that your residence permit is granted.
Nationality is not handled [or decided] by AIMA, that process is handled by the Institute of Registry and Notary Publics (IRN).
At this point, the law is not clear; there are only opinions (and while a lawyer’s opinion might be better than a non-lawyer’s opinion, it is still just an interpretation). Also, the lawyers don’t all agree.
In general, there are three interpretations:
It’s a compelling, logical argument. But this is part political, where logic doesn’t always apply. So as with the poster just above, I’ve always said let’s wait for the actual IRN rules - or failing that some court cases to decide interpretation for GV applicants.
Thanks for the interpretation. The best case is from 1. As from 1 to 3, it’s another 2 years or so for those 2021 Dec applicants. But of course, who knows how long that final approval will take from biometrics appointment… Let’s wait and see.
Apparently PT doesn’t have a concept of legal precedence, so one court case wouldn’t define the rules for everyone (unless it pushed the politicians or AIMA to act.)
Legal precedence has great power in common-law countries. Portugal has civil law , where the role of the judge is different and the civil code has more power.
Portugal follows a civil law legal tradition - like most of continental Europe - where judges don’t interpret the laws or decide as to their righteousness, rather they decide of the applicability of a law to the current case and choose between codified outcomes available to them. Basically: In each isolated instance (case), how does the codified statue relate to the proceedings, without deference to precedent. Judges are limited under civil law to issuing an outcome in a particular single proceeding.
This is in contrast to the common law tradition of the US, UK and effectively entire Anglosphere, where concepts like judicial review exist, and judges have the power to both introspect and overturn the law itself for the whole of the citizenry, as well as to (re-)intrept the law in cases of ambiguity and have that interpretation honoured as largely binding precedent in future similar cases.
I would view publication of regulations that set the start date at initial application as “huge news”. This seems to be just regurgitation of the same information we already knew was coming.
Paging through the past couple weeks on https://diariodarepublica.pt/dr/home … don’t see anything new re: 5 years recently. Shout if I missed something!
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