Government’s controversial housing policy “not unconstitutional” says president

Portugal’s President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa has ruled out sending a controversial set of public housing policies that include coercive rental measures to the constitutional court to decide if the government has trampled on citizens’ individual property rights.

The deadline to either forward the bill or not to the Constitutional Court expired on Thursday. But in statements to CNN, the president said that after studying the bills passed by the Portuguese Parliament “I don’t see any unconstitutionality in the (government’s) policies, not even in the so-called coercive rental measure”.
Therefore the decision taken by the head of State means that the More Housing’ package, which aims to help alleviate the lack of affordable housing for the neediest families in Portugal, particularly in the large cities of Lisbon and Porto, has become a merely political question with two options now on the table, either pass the bill or veto it.
“I understand that the question raised is no longer a constitutional one, we now enter a period whereby until August 20 my attention will be focused on the political issue”, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa told CNN.