The control of the constitutionality of laws in the first constitutional period: the Constitutional Committee

Abstract

Unlive the majority of the studies concerning the constitutional organs, presented under a constitutional or administrative juridical perspective conditioned by a practical appliableness, the present study intends to have a strict empirical grounding and a mainly scientific purpose, what lends it an original character in the field of political science in Portugal. Acknowledging the importance of the role played by the Constitutional Committee in its relationship with the leading characters in the Portuguese political scene after 1976, the author wants not only to describe that committee but also to show the role it has played in the institutional strategies of the different sovereignty organs. Thus the author analyses the nature and functions of the Constitutional Committee, examining the three cases in which this committee was compulsorily consulted by the Council of the Revolution. Further he shows the role played by that committee in he firts phase of functioning of the Autonomous Regions and how it was in touch with the Council of the Revolution. In the third part of the article, the Constitutional Committee is seen as the supreme jurisdictional organ, as an appeal court for constitutional affairs. In the last part the author examines the different changes in the composition of he committee, acknowledging that there have been no deep changes in its jurisprudence.