Chega party leader and presidential election loser André Ventura released a statement on his social media accounts discussing a recent victory, after Portugal’s Public Prosecution Service decided to close a criminal investigation nto three controversial campaign posters used by the right-wing politician.
“When I was accused of racism and incitement to hatred because of the posters, it was all over the television news bulletins. Now that the courts have ruled in my favour, they are trying to hide it at all costs. A disgrace!”, the post reads.
However, shortly after Ventura’s post was published, another ruling emerged that contradicts his claim of victory. On Thursday, 12th March, the Lisbon Court of Appeal upheld a lower court decision ordering him to remove one of the posters, concluding that its message was discriminatory and exceeded the limits of freedom of expression.
The criminal investigation concerned three posters used by Ventura: one referring to Roma people, and two others bearing the slogans “Immigrants cannot live off subsidies” and “This is not Bangladesh”.
Prosecutors decided to shelve the case, concluding that the messages did not constitute criminal offences such as defamation, insult or incitement to discrimination against a minority or vulnerable group. According to the prosecutor’s decision, the posters were part of protected political speech.
Ventura cited this outcome as evidence that he had been vindicated after being accused of racism and hate speech.
Yet the civil courts reached a different conclusion. In December, the Lisbon Civil Court ordered Ventura to remove a poster reading “Roma people must obey the law”, following a complaint lodged by six Roma citizens. In a judgment dated 12th March, the Lisbon Court of Appeal fully upheld that decision.
The appellate judges ruled that the phrase implicitly suggests that Roma people do not obey the law and therefore conveys a discriminatory message directed at an ethnic group historically subjected to widespread prejudice.
According to the court, singling out a specific group by ethnicity and stating that it must comply with the law is fundamentally different from making a general statement that everyone must obey the law, because it implies unequal treatment.
Ventura rejected the ruling, accusing the Lisbon Court of Appeal of “covering up and protecting censorship” and describing the decision as “a disservice to freedom and democracy”.
The Chega leader pointed to the apparent contradiction between the prosecutors’ decision to close the criminal case and the outcome of the civil proceedings.
“Freedom of the press is freedom of the press, freedom of expression is freedom of expression, political freedom is political freedom it is not different in criminal proceedings and in civil proceedings,” he argued.
Ventura said he intends to ask the Constitutional Court of Portugal to examine the ruling, arguing that the issue raises constitutional questions related to freedom of expression and political rights. He also raised the possibility of appealing to the European Court of Human Rights.
At the centre of the dispute is the interpretation of the phrase “Roma people must obey the law”.
In the criminal investigation, the prosecutor described the statement as an “apodictic proposition”, an obvious or self-evident truth that does not admit dispute. The decision argued that asserting that a group must obey the law merely states an evident fact and serves to promote political debate, particularly on the integration of Roma communities.
The Court of Appeal took the opposite view. In its ruling, the judges concluded that the phrase implicitly conveys the message that Roma people do not obey the law, thereby casting a negative generalisation on an entire ethnic group.
Both the prosecutor and the court cited case law from the European Court of Human Rights to support their reasoning, but reached conflicting conclusions about how freedom of expression should be interpreted in this context.
The appellate judges argued that political speech loses protection under Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights when it involves generalised statements that attack or stigmatise ethnic groups.
The contradiction between the two legal interpretations was highlighted by António Garcia Pereira, the lawyer who filed one of the complaints against Ventura’s posters.
Speaking to national newspaper Diário de Notícias, Garcia Pereira said the Court of Appeal’s ruling “clearly demonstrates the discriminatory nature of the posters” and dismantles the prosecutor’s argument that the statement was merely an obvious proposition.
He also accused the prosecutor of citing European court rulings that were unrelated to the case, arguing that they concerned situations involving accusations against individual politicians rather than statements targeting a specific group.
“The prosecutor cannot reasonably claim that he only knows the case law that supports his thesis,” he said. “Either you know the case law, or you do not.”
Garcia Pereira concluded that the decision to shelve the criminal investigation was “entirely unfounded”, adding that the appellate ruling effectively “reduces the Public Prosecution Service’s arguments to dust, arguments that could have been written by someone from Chega.”
Source: DN
