Politics

President António José Seguro has asked the Constitutional Court for a preventive review of the government's new Return and Asylum Law, citing doubts over child welfare, longer administrative detention for foreigners who have committed no crime, and removals carried out before appeals are decided.

President Seguro has promulgated Portugal's first dedicated statute for stateless people, completing a process begun in 2023. AIMA will run a recognition procedure that is free and urgent, with oral applications and an interpreter, and grants near-full citizen rights bar political ones.

President Antonio Jose Seguro has referred Parliament's asylum-and-return overhaul to the Constitutional Court for preventive review, citing doubts over child welfare, longer immigration detention and weaker appeal rights. The decree is frozen until the judges rule within 25 days.