Lisbon Court Lets a Housing Protester Keep One Tent on the Rossio Until the 24 November Budget Vote, Ruling the 00:30 Protest Cut-Off Is Not Automatic

A Lisbon court has ruled that the 00:30 cut-off for street protests in Portugal's 1974 law on the right of assembly cannot be applied as an "absolute and automatic" limit, and has allowed a housing protester to stay on the Rossio overnight, with one tent, until the final parliamentary vote on the 2027 State Budget, scheduled for 24 November. The ruling was handed down on Sunday 1 November and reported on Monday by Lusa, which saw the judgment, through ECO and Notícias ao Minuto.

It comes a day after police cleared the Rossio and Porto housing camps for a third time before dawn on Sunday (our report).

Who sued, and what the judge decided

The case is an intimação para proteção de direitos, liberdades e garantias, a fast-track action in the administrative courts to protect a fundamental right. It was filed on 20 October by Renata Cambra, one of the Lisbon campers and leader of the small far-left party Trabalhadores Unidos, against the Ministry of Internal Administration (MAI) and Lisbon City Council, Observador reported. She asked to protest on the Rossio around the clock until the morning of 25 November.

According to the judgment quoted by Observador, Judge Ana de Campos of the Lisbon Administrative Court:

• recognised Ms Cambra's right to protest until the final budget vote, including between 00:30 and 06:30, using the structures "strictly necessary" for her message, which in this case means one tent;
• ordered the PSP's Lisbon Metropolitan Command and the Lisbon Municipal Police not to disperse or remove her protest while it follows the court's terms;
• said the protest must be fitted around the Christmas market planned for the Rossio and, if both cannot coexist, she must be offered a nearby or adjoining spot;
• set conditions: no noise between midnight and 06:30, no fires, fireworks or gas, safe pedestrian and emergency access, and cooperation with the city's cleaning crews.

Police may still step in if there is an objective danger to people or property, or if the conditions are broken. The court did not rule on the legality of a collective occupation of the square, nor recognise a general right for any number of people to pitch tents in public space, ECO reported. The MAI had argued that Ms Cambra could only defend her own right, and the council that the camp was an unlicensed occupation. By late morning neither had commented on the ruling in the reports we read.

What it means for you

Article 45 of the Constitution guarantees the right to gather peacefully, without weapons, in places open to the public, "without needing any authorisation". Article 11 of Decreto-Lei n.º 406/74, the 1974 law that regulates that right, says outdoor gatherings may not run past 00:30. This ruling does not strike that rule down. It says the rule cannot be read as an absolute, automatic end point for a protest, so the 00:30 clock alone did not justify removing this one. The decision binds only this case, and it protects one person and one tent, not the whole camp.

Elsewhere today

The 13 people detained on Sunday, seven in Porto and six in Lisbon, were due before judges today, at 10:00 in Porto and 14:00 at Lisbon's Campus de Justiça, DN reported; the outcome had not been reported at the time of writing. Separately, 78 organisations from nine countries, in an open letter promoted by Academia Cidadã, called for an independent investigation into the 15 October police operation in Porto, Notícias ao Minuto reported.