Case No. 1112
The Constitutional Court, through Ruling No. 471/2024, decided on the constitutionality of a law that grants amnesty for crimes committed by "young people" during World Youth Day.
This concerns a criminal procedure in which the accused was charged with “the crime of driving without a legal license and the crime of driving under the influence of alcohol.” The Public Prosecutor’s Office appealed to the Constitutional Court to challenge the constitutionality of “the age limit of 30 years, imposed by the provision described in Article 2, No. 1 of Law No. 38-A/2023, of August 2, as materially unconstitutional, due to a violation of the norm of Article 13, No. 2 of the Constitution and considering the partial unconstitutionality of the 30-year age limit.”
The prominent issue addressed by the Constitutional Court concerned the analysis of the constitutionality of the age criterion for applying the amnesty provision under Law No. 38-A/2023, in light of the equality imperative set forth in Article 13, No. 2 of the Constitution.
In this regard, the ruling noted that “the principle of equality has particular implications in criminal law.” Thus, it would be possible to differentiate the treatment of offenders depending on their characteristics, the context in which they are situated, or the consequences of their actions, provided that the criteria presented for this differentiation are materially founded and reasonable.
It was highlighted that “the Constitution only prohibits differentiated treatment of situations when it appears arbitrary, without material foundation, and it is necessary to specify the meaning of legal equality.”
The Constitutional Court, maintaining its established position, opted to reaffirm its limited role in overseeing legislative activity without delving more specifically into the motivations behind legislative acts.
The decision also stated that “it is not for the Constitutional Court to assess the appropriateness of the qualification of ‘young people’ when applied to individuals up to 30 years old,” but rather to recognize that there is an objective connection that ensures a minimally coherent justification when comparing the age limit determined by the legislator with the context of the celebration associated with the amnesty (World Youth Day), “which is sufficient to conclude that the criterion for distinguishing the recipients of the provision is not arbitrary.”
It is worth noting that the decision was not unanimous, and the dissenting opinions are part of the ruling. In his opinion, Judge Gonçalo de Almeida Ribeiro, although he agreed with the constitutionality of the provision in question, pointed out that even “if one admits, in the abstract or in principle, the constitutionality of commemorative amnesties, I do not believe that the reasons invoked in the bill and that permeate the entire law are legitimate, that is, capable of justifying the sacrifice of penal equality.”
Judge Rui Guerra da Fonseca, who was in the minority, emphasized that the legislator's motivation for “a subjective delimitation of the scope based on age” seems to have been the “Pope's visit, especially” World Youth Day. However, he pointed out, “any discrimination that adopts age as a criterion needs to be supported by and justify distinctions based on that personal characteristic, meaning the necessity of using such a distinctive criterion,” which was not observed in the provision contained in Article 2, No. 1 of Law No. 38-A/2023, given the aforementioned legislative motivation, causing unjustified penal discrimination.
We invite everyone to follow the Observatory on social media for more relevant and up-to-date content on Constitutional Justice.
Full text of the judgment available here.
