The session of the special committee to analyze the Chega project that requires parliament to open a process against the President of the Republic for the crimes of treason, coercion against constitutional bodies, and usurpation lasted less than 15 minutes today.

The President of the Assembly of the Republic, José Pedro Aguiar-Branco, considered that the nature of this committee is relevant due to the "seriousness of the facts in question and which are likely to jeopardize the regular functioning of the sovereign bodies", which justifies that the entire process should take place "expeditiously, within the law".

"We will be in a position to vote, at worst, on Friday in a plenary session that may even be called for this extraordinary purpose because I can do so under our rules of procedure", said Aguiar-Branco in his short speech in which he wished for "productive and quality work".

It was after Aguiar-Branco left the room that the president of the committee, the socialist Marcos Perestrello, began the process of choosing the rapporteur.

The PS indicated Isabel Moreira and the PSD, through Hugo Carneiro, said that they had nothing to oppose to the suggestion made, while the BE, through Fabian Figueiredo, expressed the party's support for this name.

Given the agreement, by silence, of the other parties, the president of the committee stated that "Isabel Moreira is appointed rapporteur".

Marcos Perestrello then set a deadline of 6:00 pm on Wednesday for Isabel Moreira to make this report available to the members of parliament, a date that the rapporteur accepted, with a new meeting of the committee scheduled for the following day, Thursday, at 2:00 pm, to analyze the document.

It was only at this point that the president of Chega, André Ventura, asked to speak.

"Despite our non-opposition, it seems to us that Ms. Isabel Moreira is not qualified to be rapporteur because she has already publicly expressed her opinion on all these facts and said in advance that this made no sense and that we would have committed a crime of defamation", he said.

For Ventura, the socialist does not have "the conditions of objectivity, neutrality and impartiality to make this assessment", and proposed that, for the sake of balance since the presidency is held by the PS, the report should be made by the PSD.

In his response, Hugo Carneiro maintained his confidence in the socialist and highlighted her known work, anticipating that she "will make an effort to write the report in the most impartial way possible, leaving out personal considerations".

António Filipe, from the PCP, expressed his agreement with Isabel Moreira, emphasizing that "the opinions of the rapporteurs are not voted on, but the legal and constitutional grounds".

The communist took the opportunity to ask André Ventura to make available to the special committee the legal opinions that he said he had when he made public his intention to proceed with this process, a request that received no response.

The draft resolution submitted to parliament by Chega on Monday calls for the opening of a process against the President of the Republic for the crimes of treason, coercion against constitutional bodies, and usurpation.

"Chega requests the Assembly of the Republic to initiate the proceedings leading to the opening of a proper process against His Excellency the President of the Republic for the crime of treason, coercion against constitutional bodies, and usurpation", reads the proposal released by the party.

The initiative submitted was announced on Tuesday by André Ventura, following statements by Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa about a possible historical reparation to the former colonies.

Read Also: Perestrello chairs special committee on Chega's action against PR (Portuguese version)