Aguiar-Branco Sets Tuesday 19 May Deadline for PSD, Chega and PS Tribunal Constitucional Candidate Lists — Conferência de Líderes on Wednesday 20 May to Decide the Election

The president of the Assembleia da República, José Manuel Pita Ágoas-Branco — known on the floor by his shortened name Aguiar-Branco — instructed the three parliamentary blocs negotiating the next round of Tribunal Constitucional appointments to deliver their candidate lists by close of business on Tuesday 19 May. The decision, communicated to the leaderships of PSD, Chega and PS on Wednesday 13 May, sets the procedural runway for a Conferência de Líderes meeting on Wednesday 20 May at which the parliament will attempt — for the first time in nine months of negotiation — to lock in the vacancies that have been carrying over from the previous legislature.

Three of the Tribunal Constitucional's thirteen seats are formally open under the Lei do Tribunal Constitucional, with a fourth seat carrying a deferred-effect resignation that will widen the slate before the next session begins. Under the April 2026 cross-bench agreement, PSD, Chega and PS each retain the right to indicate one candidate; the fourth name has to be brokered by consensus between PS and Chega, a clause that has already produced a string of failed sondagens between the two parties. Aguiar-Branco rejected Chega's request for an extraordinary leaders' conference earlier this month, telling André Ventura's bench that the existing 20 May calendar already gave the slate enough time to surface.

The deadline carries practical weight because the TC has been operating with reduced capacity since late 2025 and is under particular pressure on the constitutional-fiscalisation track. The court declared Portaria 230/2019 on the RNH "atividades de elevado valor acrescentado" inconstitucional on Wednesday 14 May — its second high-profile ruling of the month, after the December 2025 unconstitutionality finding on portions of the nationality-law amendment. Both decisions came from a bench that has been one judge short for parts of the year, and the constitutional-fiscalisation queue continues to grow as Parliament processes the Trabalho XXI labour reform and the residual nationality-law file returned by President António José Seguro on 12 May.

Sources inside PSD told Lusa that the parliamentary leadership has already converged on a name from the academic constitutional-law community and expects to formally communicate it before the Monday cut-off. Chega has been more reticent on its pick, having explored at least three candidates from the magistratura ordinária over recent weeks; an internal note circulated by the party's parliamentary group on Wednesday morning said a final decision would come "in the days immediately preceding the deadline". The PS has signalled it intends to put forward a sitting senior magistrate, building on a shortlist its constitutional-affairs working group prepared in late April.

The fourth-seat clause remains the structural bottleneck. PS leader José Luís Carneiro confirmed on Tuesday evening that the party will not endorse a Chega nomination without prior comprehensive review of the nominee's published opinions and judicial record, a position that has so far blocked four rounds of informal probing between the two benches. Should the Conferência de Líderes fail to find consensus on the fourth seat on 20 May, Aguiar-Branco has discretion under the regimento to split the votes — electing the three uncontested names and parking the consensus seat for a later sitting.

The schedule also reopens questions on the parallel slate of órgãos externos elections, including the Conselho de Estado and the Provedor de Justiça, which have been moving on a separate negotiation track since April.