Given their insistence on ramming this legislation through, strange that the Gov’t has sat on the main decree’s promulgation for a week. Perhaps they were waiting for this ‘additional’ bit to play out?
PSD prepares to drop proposal for an additional penalty of loss of nationality.
…despite the insistence of the Chega party president for the reconfirmation of the decree in the Assembly of the Republic, the PSD is preparing to drop the proposal to create the accessory penalty of loss of nationality for committing certain crimes that the judges of the Constitutional Court declared unconstitutional again last Friday. The Social Democratic parliamentary leader guaranteed that same day that, although he intends to speak with the parties that supported the proposal, the PSD does not intend to provoke “any institutional conflict” and that the “essential” thing was to have a new Nationality Law, something that is about to happen, since the President of the Republic has promulgated it and the text is already awaiting publication in the Official Gazette so that it can come into force.
It makes me wonder if there is a hint of surprise by lawmakers as to the response to these changes and while we are getting screwed, is this their version of “oh %$# we didnt expect that?”. My thought is that they were/are not attuned to people being so pissed and able to organize to demonstrate their anger in an organized manner. The fact that people are pulling out of investments and the recent press may have caught them off guard. My sense in talking with our Portuguese friends is that they are at least surprised by the articles about lawsuits because that is not the “typical” Portuguese response. The dont realize that they have poked the bear… and now the have to live with it.
I’m still having my morning coffee, so I want to look at this closer. In the meantime, does anyone have thoughts on this:
In particular this line: the IRN informs that, for the purposes of applying the amendments to the Nationality Law, the date of submission of the application on the online platform will be considered .
This is a positive for those that have already submitted citizenship applications. It clarifies the ambiguity of the submission date to mean the time you hit send on the complete online application or attend the in person submission. I do not know the implications for mailed applications (received vs postmarked)
Previously IRN would not assign a tracking number for around 6 months after application submission and there was ambiguity of if that assignment date was the actual submission date. Thankfully, that will not be the case.
So does this mean that it does not apply to those still going through biometrics and several years away from being eligible to apply for citizenship? Rather it’s for those who already were eligible and submitted an application for citizenship after their 5 year wait was over.
this regulation only applies to people who have submitted citizenship applications. right now the assumption is that the timeline has changed for anyone who has not yet applied for citizenship, regardless of where they are in their residency timeline, but there might still be similar regulatory relief in how the laws are implemented and if there is not there will most likely be lawsuits.
If this article is accurate then it’s good news for those who have submitted before the new law takes effect. But, it still does not clarify the key question of whether, if you have submitted your citizenship application before the new law takes effect but before you’ve completed 5 years under the old law, will you continue to be subject to the old law, meaning, even if you’re rejected/put on hold for not having 5 years, will they either approve you once you do have 5 years or at least allow you to reapply still under the old rules once you have 5 years. To my mind this is the only question that matters and that’s still unanswered (at least for me).
I was hoping this meant those that have been waiting for a residency card for years will still be able to count from application submission. It sounds like it is not.
It does not, no, although if you submitted an early citizenship application you’ll at least have some standing to sue on that basis if you’ve past the 5 years when they review the file.
It’s almost identical to the previous bill that was passed, but with some very minor changes that don’t have much impact on us.
What we haven’t seen yet are the regulations, which is how the government plans to implement the changes to the law. At this point those are our last hope for some leniency, but I wouldn’t put a lot of hope into it.
Portugal’s handling of this has been really bad and unfair. I’ve been dealing with this since 2015, and the opportunity cost alone is huge. I was cheated by my real estate agent lawyers, and other snake-oil salespeople, who misinformed me several times for their own benefit.
I know many others like you have their own horror stories too, so honestly, slamming thousands of lawsuits would make sense, especially for monetary losses and the mental trauma people have gone through.
That said, on what legal basis would the naturalization claim succeed? Nowhere in the Golden Visa program does it explicitly say that five years guarantees citizenship. That’s the part I’m trying to wrap my head around.
Citizenship was never guaranteed but that’s entirely beside the point. AIMA and before them SEF espoused a 5 year timeline to citizenship eligibility in marketing materials for ARI and the law implicitly guaranteed eligibility for citizenship via the 2024 amendment addressing counting of time from application rather than visa issuance. The legitimate expectations and issues around legal certainty created by those two facts is going to be the foundation for lawsuits.
Re: article above. Does anyone here know about this: “500 Golden Visa Holders Prepare Collective Lawsuit Against Portuguese State”. How do we join that?
Because it really makes NO SENSE, ZERO LOGIC that they would make the old law to consider date since application… but now for us (the exact same people who waited 3 years for the Residence Card etc), they suddenly don’t care. This seems like a legitimate legal case to me!
If there is a discussion about this on another thread, let me know, I missed it. Thanks!
