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The Ombudsperson, Maria Lúcia Amaral, attended the audience to present New Year’s greetings to the President of the Republic, which took place on 10 January at the Belém Palace in Lisbon. Also present were the President of the Constitutional Court, the President of the Supreme Court of Justice, the President of the Supreme Administrative Court, the President of the Portuguese…

Special noise licences are administrative permits – to be issued by local authorities (municipality or parish, depending on the case) – that allow temporary noisy activities to take place, under certain conditions, near sensitive locations (such as residential buildings, on Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays, and on working days between 8pm and 8am, or near hospitals or similar establishments). As…

The Ombudsperson, Maria Lúcia Amaral, took part as a speaker in the opening session of the final event of the project “Integrating Human Rights in Administrative Detention Centres”, organised by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), which took place in the Congress Area of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon on 30 November. The event marked the end of the…

The Ombudsman has submitted a request to the Constitutional Court for a declaration of unconstitutionality, with general binding force, of rules in force in the Autonomous Region of Madeira that limit the activity of individual passenger transport in uncharacterised vehicles, known by the acronym TVDE. At present, TVDE activity in the Autonomous Region of Madeira is subject to a numerus…

The Ombudsman, Maria Lúcia Amaral, received the Ukrainian Ambassador to Portugal, Maryna Mykhailenko, on 28 November, at the first hearing held in the Ombudsman’s new premises.

On the eve of its half-century anniversary, on 15 November the Ombudsman has moved its headquarters from Rua do Pau de Bandeira, in the residential neighbourhood of Lapa, to Palácio Vilalva, located between Rua Marquês de Fronteira and Largo de São Sebastião da Pedreira, in one of Lisbon’s central hubs. This fulfils a long-standing ambition to place the state institution…

The Ombudsperson, Maria Lúcia Amaral, took part in the meeting of the Council of State held on 9 November 2023 at the Palácio de Belém in Lisbon. The Council of State was convened under Article 145 a) and e) of the Constitution – under which this consultative body is responsible for “pronouncing on the dissolution of the Assembly of the…

The Ombudsman, as a National Human Rights Institution and as a National Preventive Mechanism (NPM), took part in the 14th International Conference of the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions (GANHRI), which was held in Copenhagen, Denmark, from 6 to 8 November 2023. The aim of GANHRI’s international conferences is to develop and promote co-operation between national human rights…

The Ombudsman has submitted a request to the Constitutional Court for a declaration of unconstitutionality, with general binding force, of rules contained in Law no. 13/2023, of 3 April, which amended the Labour Code and related legislation “within the scope of the decent work agenda”. The rules in question are those contained in Article 10(3) of the Labour Code, which…