Law 26/2020. Ombudsman requests review by the Constitutional Court

The Ombudsman submitted a request to the Constitutional Court to review the constitutionality of articles 10, no. 2, 13, no. 4 and 14, no. 1 of Law no. 26/2020 of 21 July. Transposing a European directive, the aforementioned law establishes the obligation to communicate to the Tax and Customs Authority certain internal or cross-border mechanisms with tax relevance.
The request addressed to the Court considers that the legislative provisions in question, going beyond what the directive itself provides, impose, without any margin of appreciation, the absolute prevalence of the duty to communicate over the lawyer’s duty of professional secrecy, thus constituting a disproportionate restriction on the right to a fair and equitable trial, on the right to privacy and on the secrecy of communications between lawyers and their clients, as protected by the Constitution of the Republic.
To read the petition submitted to the Constitutional Court click here [in Portuguese].