The Academic Association of the University of Algarve wants the Higher Education Financing Laws approved by different governments since 1997 to be sent to the Constitutional Court "for successive inspection".
Students consider that the different laws approved to date «do not guarantee the constitutional principle that “everyone has the right to education with a guarantee of the right to equal opportunities of access and academic success”».
"The Constitutional principle that states that everyone has the right to education with a guarantee of the right to equal opportunities of access and academic success has not been fulfilled for a long time in Higher Education and the Constitutional Court should have the opportunity to rule on the matter . We will do what we can so that they have this opportunity and that the Constitution is fulfilled, if not with retroactive effects, at least from now on», guaranteed the president of AAUAlg Filipa Bráz da Silva.
The association announced, in a press release, that it had requested meetings with the President of the Republic, the President of the Assembly of the Republic, the Prime Minister, the Ombudsman, the Attorney General and the Parliamentary Groups of the Assembly of the Republic, to try to achieve this goal.
At issue are the Higher Education Financing Law) approved in the government of António Guterres (1997) and the financing laws that followed, approved in the governments of Durão Barroso (2003) and José Sócrates (2005). The only time that the constitutionality of a Law on Higher Education Financing was scrutinized, recalled the AAUAlg, dates back to 1994, when the Court declared the law approved in the government of Cavaco Silva, in 1992, unconstitutional,
In this ruling, however, the Constitutional Court considered that “the constitutional concept of progressively free of charge entails a certain halo of indeterminacy (…) that certainly does not prevent or prohibit the value of tuition fees fixed in 1941 and maintained in 1973 from being updated”.
“The mere fact that the Constitutional Court stated that it was constitutionally appropriate to update the value of the bribe, based on the Price Index, from $1.200 in 1941 to $109.128 in 1991 (which currently correspond to €1.065) is already very debatable. So debatable that the Minister of Education who approved the first Law on Higher Education Financing No. 113/97, Marçal Grilo, recently stated that the law he had approved was “obviously unconstitutional”, according to the Algarve academic association.
«The interpretation of the Constitutional Court, in 1994, on the updating of fees was not a great service to democracy and to the Constitution, not least because it allows a Government to establish fees for all levels of education. Assuming that the only difference between 1941, in which higher education was admittedly elitist, and 1992 is the Consumer Price Index, makes us think that the revolution and regime change and expressions such as "democratic education" and “progressively free” after all are worthless, even when they are enshrined as guiding principles in the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic», considered Filipa Braz da Silva.
Algarve university students also recall that the most recent laws "always leave to complementary legislation the level of social support that students should have", but, although the law requires these diplomas to be issued within 180 days, «many of the supports were never regulated and therefore the State's duties (corresponding to the students' rights) were never implemented despite being expressed in the law».
“There is no “brake clause” in the law that obliges the State to implement the constitutional principle of equal opportunities. Students' duties are legislated – tuition fees and the consequences of their non-payment – but the effective responsibilities of the State in relation to social support to Students are not legislated», reads the press release of AAUAlg.
The fact that only the general duties of the State relating to this matter are pointed out, to be legislated, when they are, in complementary legislation, does not guarantee the principle that "no student may be excluded from higher education for economic reasons" and therefore it cannot be constitutional, defended Filipa Braz da Silva.
“The value of tuition fees is important, but it is relative and cannot be dissociated from who actually has to pay them, that is, from those who do not have social support. I am in favor of the tuition fee being €10 per year, as long as all students whose household does not reach €10 per month are exempt from paying. If the fee is higher, there must be fewer people to pay, if the fee is lower, there must be more people to pay», added the association leader.
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