Universality and Binding Effect of Human Rights from a Portuguese Perspective

Abstract

The Portuguese legal system is strongly committed to the protection of human rights either at the international and European levels or at the national one. This chapter analyzes how the Portuguese Constitution acknowledges all sources of international law that consecrate human rights and drafts the limits to their reception by the Portuguese legal order. It is stressed that the majority of the international conventions do not assure an adequate human rights enforcement regime. However, the ECHR constitutes a remarkable exception, and it has adopted a specific mechanism that influences, on a daily basis, the Portuguese courts and public bodies’ decisions. Furthermore, the Chapter explains the national constitutional regime of fundamental rights, pointing out the difference between civil rights (“direitos, liberdades e garantias”) and social, economic and cultural rights. In order to access how the law works, in practical terms, this study includes a brief summary of several decisions of the Portuguese Constitutional Court and the other Supreme Courts.