The complaint presented by José Amarelinho, mayor of Aljezur, to the Constitutional Court, which confirmed the mayor's loss of mandate in December, was rejected, in accordance with a judgment dated 22 February, which the Sul Informação had access.
The Constitutional Court considered that the mayor's claims "add nothing to the issues of admissibility of appeals already considered in the summary decision."
The Public Prosecutor's Office, who also commented on this complaint, says that the arguments presented in the complaint by José Amarelinho "in no way undermine the grounds of the contested decision" and that the appellants (José Amarelinho and Manuel Marreiros) did not raise, "with the minimum of clarity, rigor and autonomy, any question of normative unconstitutionality».
José Amarelinho filed an appeal with the Constitutional Court following the decision of the Court of Appeal of Évora, of June 13, 2017, which confirmed the suspended sentence of three years and two months in prison and the loss of municipal mandate decreed by the Court of Lakes.
After this appeal was rejected, Amarelinho filed a complaint that, it is now known, did not change the TC's Summary Decision.
O Sul Informação he has already tried several times to contact the mayor of Aljezur to find out if he will take another measure, but so far he has not been able to talk to José Amarelinho. Also, as far as our newspaper knows, the Aljezur Chamber has not yet issued the statement on the matter that was promised for the beginning of this week.
However,legal entity contacted by Sul Informação admits that José Amarelinho and Manuel Marreiros can now appeal to the European Court of Human Rights, as arguments about violation of these rights were persistently used by lawyers for the two defendants.
If it happens, this appeal could postpone the execution of the sentence, according to the same source.
Five years ago, the Court of Lagos sentenced Amarelinho to a suspended sentence of imprisonment, of three years and two months, pending execution upon payment of five thousand euros to the League for the Protection of Nature, for malfeasance, in the licensing of works in Vale da Telha, when the now mayor was councilor.
Manuel Marreiros, then mayor, was also sentenced in the same case, for the crime of malfeasance, to loss of mandate and to a suspended prison sentence of four years and three months, upon payment of five thousand euros to the Almargem association.
Amarelinho and Manuel Marreiros appealed and, in 2013, the Court of Appeal of Évora annulled the judgment of the Court of Lagos, due to the «deficient critical analysis of the evidence produced» in the first instance.
The mayors returned to the Court of Lagos, a new judgment was drafted in the same sense as the previous one and, after another appeal, the Court of Appeal of Évora confirmed the sentence.
This was one of the arguments invoked by José Amarelinho to appeal this decision to the Constitutional Court. Amarelinho explained that “four years ago, the Court of Appeal said different things and considered the sentence null due to the lack of critical analysis of the evidence, now it comes to say something different. There must now be a higher court to decide this case”.
However, the Constitutional Court (TC) considered that "the conditions of admissibility are not met in the appeal" for this instance and that "a question of unconstitutionality with an adequate normative dimension was not previously raised by any of the appellants during the process".
Amarelinho, in January, told the Sul Informação that “until the sentence becomes final, I have all legal rights and will exercise them. That's what I'm going to do».
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