The biggest issue here is that the government publicly admitted (or rather bragged about) de-prioritizing ARI applicants
I think the main problem is that the Portuguese government never promised citizenship in exchange for our ARI. Only a residence permit for ARI. Isn’t that right? Read the official documents. Portuguese citizenship is a different, derivative result common to everyone, not just ARI. Time has passed, and these other, general conditions not related to ARI have changed. I’m sure they’ll soon grant the promised residence permit to all ARI participants; the queue is thinning. And if AIMA took a long time to give you a residence permit, demand damages. If you prove they exist, sue for 2-3 years in court, paying a lot of local lawyers. That’s the maximum. Anything else—challenging the law in court, class action lawsuits against the government, and so on—is complete nonsense and is simply a way for lawyers to make money off you. That’s the reality. Unfortunately, but of course, those who want to can try this for themselves.
I am sorry to point this out - no one was outraged or threatened lawsuits when the requirement for citizenship was reduced from 6 years to 5 (we entered GV in 2018 having been told CLEARLY that we could apply for citizenhip about 7 years from apartment purchase - 1 year for paperwork and apply after 6).
On principle GV investors should have done so as that has now set a precedent for those who invested post June 2018 that the government could, and had, made changes to the program. Those on this forum would consider that retrospective.
We also asked if anyone had received passports and were told it was too early to say and that there was no guarantee other than we could apply as we had met the terms of the golden visa, which at that point envisaged no more than a week per year of actual residence - and appears to do so still.
When we made the application we had presumably decided against more certain, though more expensive, alternatives such as Malta and the UK.
Finally, I note with sorrow that most of the complaints are coming from citizens of a country whose own immigration rules are constantky changing, whose policies would make Ventura blush, that are made by one cabal (no constitutional court there) whose rug pulling and ‘voluntary deportation’ of legal immgigrants rampant.
I would suggest not looking for excessive sympathy.
Umm.. anyone with a law degree understands what “harm” means. Reducing the eligibility from 6 to 5 yrs does not cause any harm. You don’t have to apply at 5yrs. You can apply at 6yrs like you originally planned. Harm is when options are taken away from you. New options being given to you is not harm. You can decline the new option, so it does not harm you.
So your entire argument is nonsense, since it ignores the basics of what constitutes harm.
I asked my own lawyers (at a major PT law firm, not a GV boutique) about the merits of the collective action that a few of the immigration firms are putting together. Their take on it:
You may have seen recent media coverage reporting that some law firms are announcing their intention to pursue class actions on behalf of ARI investors. We feel it is important to address this directly. […] Class actions are a legal mechanism rooted in the American legal system and are not that common in Portuguese courts. Portuguese courts are not usually opened to claims of this nature, and we are concerned that this approach, however well-intentioned, is unlikely to yield effective results for individual clients. […] More fundamentally, we believe that those firms are approaching this issue as a collective block rather than engaging with the specific circumstances of each individual case. This matters greatly, because the Constitutional Court has already issued a ruling on the law in the abstract. What remains to be done - and what will actually make a difference - is obtaining rulings on concrete, individual cases. Each client’s situation, timeline and legitimate expectations must be assessed and argued on its own merits before the courts. That is the only path that can deliver real and enforceable outcomes.
While this may be completely true, it also (shockingly) yields the greatest benefits for Portuguese lawyers: “That’s right, we have to argue each and every case before a judge, there’s no way to create a blanket category.”
Putting aside our own interests for a moment, this is the perfect indictment of the right wing’s refusal to include transitional measures in the new law.
Most of the people the right wing most wants to remove, i.e. low-income immigrants from developing countries, are likely locked into Portugal already if they have managed to survive the
's attempts to remove them since Manifestaçao. Five years or ten, they will stay and eventually become citizens. Lack of transitional period accomplishes nothing except delaying the inevitable.
Meanwhile, even the most optimistic investors and professionals who came on GV or D7 now realize they’ve been conned. Some will give up and leave straightaway, while many will clog up the legal system for years with cases that contribute nothing to the average Portuguese and never needed to exist had the state not decided to screw over investors.
Even if investors and professionals succeed in obtaining citizenship after suffering years of lies, abuse, and dysfunction, except for the ones who have no choice but to stay, they will likely never invest in Portugal or contribute to its economy again.
Spite is not an effective basis for public policy decisions, and when it becomes the basis for power grabs, it leads to stagnation and decline.
Have been reading the petition floating around the telegram group, and I don’t think I’m part of the affected groups, and therefore can’t/won’t sign. To wit: the petition appears define affected groups to include those who
Those who have applied but haven’t yet received a card - well, I applied, and actually do have a card; am 6 months shy of being able to apply for nationality. So this item is moot.
Maybe I’m an ‘applicant whose case was delayed’ Except that further on, the petition uses the word Citizen specifically. And I’m not a citizen. Just a humble resident.
Graus de proteção jurídica — (yada) 4; (iii) Cidadãos afetados por mora administrativa superior
No one is claiming that the Portuguese government “promised citizenship” in exchange for ARI, and I’m rather sick and tired of hearing this bandied about as being what GV investors are supposedly claiming.
The Portuguese government clearly promised ELIGIBILITY to apply for citizenship
on a 5 year timeline from ARI investment, with a year or two added on for administrative processing of applicants’ cases. Retroactively changing 5 years to 10 years for people AFTER they planned their lives and their family’s lives around a 5 year timeline AND made investments of hundreds of thousands of dollars is a clear breach of contract and a clear harm.
As already mentioned, reducing the timeline from 6 to 5 years does not constitute a harm. Nor does changing the counting of the start date from date of initial application to date of 1st card.
I believe ‘class action’ is only a term that’s being loosely used by various posters here on Nomadgate and on various Whatsapp groups, borrowed from the US.
My basic understanding, at least in the case of one legal consortium, is that the action being taken is not a ‘class action’ in the American sense, but rather, exactly as your lawyer suggested was needed, arguing individual cases on their individual merit. It’s only a ‘class action’ in the sense that several individual cases are being advised and coordinated through the same consortium of law firms as they all pertain to the same matter of the harms caused to GV investors by the retroactive law change. So presumably there will be lots of commonalities across cases and lots of synergies to be gained by such coordination and ‘collective action’.
I don’t trust the court. I think the most the court will do is include the AIMA residency card delays in the 10-year passport waiting period. But that’s a slim hope, practically nil.
There are two parts to this : First, moving start date to investment instead of card would take almost 3 years off my timeline, more for others . Second the PR aspect of 1000+ GV investors suing (and the few who can, withdrawing investments and canceling them) has already forced political defensiveness and response. So, it all adds up and helps. Yes it may not work, but the value to me is sufficient that I am willing to spend a fair bit of money against probability of success (and would agree to spend far more contingent on success, if any lawyers are reading this )
And at distraction. And at just straight-faced lying, knowing people will eventually forget. Try acting like that in any half-sensible commercial company.
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