Now we know who is the glass half-empty kinda person here 
Two massive rulings that sent the new LdN into a knockdown for at least three months (and counting) is not lifting a finger?.. 
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Well, yes and no, right? I mean yes they sent it back, but they also ruled that it was fine to screw everyone over with no grandfathering nor no claim of legitimate expectations / legal stability..
The delays since are not really attributable to them.
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Agreed. It would seem easy to quickly strike the things the court ruled unconstitutional and draft a new version which would still screw all of us.
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One may hope that the election of left-wing president Seguro will have a moderating effect on their next draft of the law.
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For those of you that may have missed this, I’m posting a link to a great and informative webinar by lawyers @madalenamonteiro and André Miranda. Info on the nationality law, applying for citizenship early, and the impact of the Presidential Elections.
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From what I understand, they basically suggest its unlikely that early citizenship applications will be successful, you need to materially meet the requirements before the application (e.g. complete language course, but not have the certificate upon application). Crazy to think it would be anything else, but who knows, this is Portugal 
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Things are moving again. Not necessarily in a way that’s good for us
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3 - Reapreciação do Decreto da Assembleia da República n.º 17/XVII - Alteração à Lei n.º 37/81, de 3 de outubro, que aprova a Lei da Nacionalidade e do Decreto da Assembleia da República n.º 18/XVII - Altera o Código Penal, criando a pena acessória de perda da nacionalidade
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Huh. I expected the revisit to nationality law, but I really thought loss of citizenship as an accessory penalty was dead in the water. Maybe I’m misreading.
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I think as a formality, they must vote on all vetoed laws. Either to override the veto (which would be unprecedented for laws struck down as unconstitutional) or to amend/abandon them. Seems likely the loss will be abandoned but the citizenship law will be amended to hose us without the unconstitutional parts.
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Great. So we have one month to prepare our next round of letters to the Deputies, the President, and the (future new judges of) the Constitutional Court.. 
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Is it a discussion or vote on April 1?
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One thing that I haven’t thought of before, but I wanted to raise, is that the legislature wanted to add " at the date of their submission" into the new law and the court held that this was a substantive change to the current law, which means that the current law does not require the application to fulfill the criteria at the date of submission, but at some other point (that is presumably at a further point down the line from submission, and some would argue at the date of analysis). How could one claim that ‘an early’ application under the current regime is not the way to go then?
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The current regime allows for consideration of some requirements at a ‘later than submission date’, without specifying or mandating that all requirements must be considered at such a date. The TC gave one example where such ‘later date’ consideration is inevitable under the current law, and they gave another example where they deem it appropriate (and it is because I think they read the current regs which actually specify a very similar scenario to their second example).
But all of that does not mean that all requirements would absolutely always be considered as of a ‘later date’.
Hence the TC ruled that the attempted new rule is not ‘interpretive’ as it would simply break the old law in some scenarios instead of ‘interpreting’ it, therefore the rule is not ‘interpretive’ but ‘substantive’ and that constitutes a retroactive change to the old law, which is a) unconstitutinal and b) contradictory to the very same LdN the govt. proposed.
Hope this makes it more clear.
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I think we are largely saying the same thing, just taking a different spin on it. The proposed law to definitively set that application must be valid at submission was deemed substantive enough that it is not ‘an interpretation’, but ‘substantive’ change. So, the current regime absolutely allows partially complete applications to be submitted and approved later on (provided the requirements are later fulfilled). We just do not know what they requirements might be. They are never enumerated anywhere. Those submitting earlier are betting that this unmentioned list includes things like 5 year residence and language certificate, while others are saying that these things are definitely not on this imaginary list. Since the list does not exist, we have no way of knowing at the moment who is right.
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I would not use the ‘We’ pronoun here
Please feel free to check the current regs. to the current LdN.
I posted a link a few times.
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