The Minister of Foreign Affairs today considered that the “rejection” of Judge Gonçalo Almeida Ribeiro for the European Union Court of Justice is illegal since the criterion presented is not included in the EU’s operating treaty.
“Who defines the requirements for [the appointment] of judges are the treaties, not the European evaluation committee,” highlighted Paulo Rangel, who is being heard in the parliamentary committee on European Affairs on the matter.
“The [operating] treaty does not mention, anywhere, the obligation for the candidate to have 20 years of experience,” the minister stated, pointing out that this condition does not apply to magistrates who serve in high courts, but to jurists.
In the case of Gonçalo Almeida Ribeiro, the need to have 20 years of experience is not mandatory, as the judge is currently vice-president of the Constitutional Court, Paulo Rangel advanced.
The minister also reminded the parties present in the parliamentary committee that the candidates presented by the Government were ratified by the Assembly of the Republic, so “given a rejection, it is the Assembly that is also at stake and not just the Government.”
Assuring that he supports the existence of an evaluation committee, the minister admitted he found the process used strange, as “in cases where the committee refuses [a candidate], they usually warn the State in advance, something they did not do with Portugal.”
The reason for this warning not being made, he considered, was “no decision of refusal was made.”
“There was a huge division [in the evaluation committee] and they ended up not making a decision,” he said.
Anticipating that the situation “will have consequences,” Paulo Rangel stated that in the discussion that took place in the committee, all 27 member states were represented and “25 agreed with Portugal’s position.”
The States “found that, firstly, the opinion is not binding and, secondly, having used a merely formal criterion [for the negative position], the Portuguese State should have been warned to know if it wanted to withdraw its candidacy,” he said.
The situation, which the Minister of Foreign Affairs described as “inadmissible,” ended with “the 26 States proposing that, to prevent a precedent, the opinion should be respected with the counterproposal that the committee chairman be called to the intergovernmental committee to explain and debate the application of the criterion in the future.”
Rangel also reminded that the president of the EU Court of Justice entered that institution at the age of 38, so he did not yet have 20 years of experience, and that the evaluation committee gave “the greatest praise to the candidate” who has held the position of vice-president of the Constitutional Court for nine years.
