The Constitution of 2 April 1976: how Portugal wrote down its democracy

At a quarter to ten on the morning of Friday 2 April 1976, Henrique de Barros opened the last working session of Portugal's Constituent Assembly in the Palácio de São Bento in Lisbon. The morning's main business was unusual. The three secretaries of the chair took turns to read out the whole text of the new Constitution, article by article, that the deputies had spent ten months writing.1 source1 source

When the session resumed at five past three, one deputy from each party read a political statement, ending with the Socialist leader Mário Soares. Then Barros put the text to a single vote, taken as the Assembly's rules required, with deputies rising from their seats. He asked those against to stand first. The deputies of the CDS, the Christian democrat party, got up.1 source1 source

A voice in the chamber shouted “Reactionaries!”. Barros asked for the Assembly's attention: it was, he said, a moment emotional enough without such interjections. Nobody stood to abstain. When he called for those in favour, every other deputy in the room rose, and the minutes record long standing applause, cheers for the Constitution and the whole chamber singing the national anthem.1 source1 source

The secretary António Arnaut then read the result. Fifteen CDS deputies had voted against and there were no abstentions. All the others, including the independents and the deputy for Macau, had voted for the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic.1 source1 source

The Constitution was a child of the revolution of 25 April 1974, when the Armed Forces Movement (MFA), a group of military officers, overthrew the Estado Novo, the dictatorship that had governed Portugal under a constitution adopted in 1933. The MFA's programme promised a Constituent Assembly elected by universal, direct and secret suffrage within twelve months.3 sources3 sources

That election took place on 25 April 1975, a year to the day after the coup, and 91.66 per cent of registered voters turned out. The Socialist Party (PS) won 116 of the 250 seats, the centre-right Popular Democrats (PPD) 81, the Communists (PCP) 30 and the CDS 16. The campaign and the vote have their own article in this series.2 sources2 sources

The deputies were not free to write whatever they wanted. On 11 April 1975 the MFA and the main parties had signed a Constitutional Agreement Platform, known as the first MFA-parties pact. It laid down principles the new text had to contain and, whatever the election result, kept the Council of the Revolution, the MFA's ruling body, at the top of the state.2 sources2 sources

The Assembly's only task was to draft and approve the Constitution. Unlike Portugal's earlier constituent assemblies, it had no power to make ordinary laws or to oversee the government. Under the pact the President of the Republic would be chosen indirectly, by an electoral college formed by the MFA Assembly and the future legislative assembly.3 sources3 sources

The Assembly opened on 2 June 1975. Each of the six parties with seats presented its own draft constitution. A committee proposed how the text should be organised, and the Assembly then set up special committees, each writing one part and sending its articles to the plenary for debate and vote.2 sources2 sources

In his closing report Barros counted 132 plenary sessions taking almost 500 hours, 280 of them spent discussing and voting the Constitution, and 327 meetings of 13 committees, about 1,000 hours behind closed doors. He named the committees, above all the Drafting Committee, as the real authors of the text. That committee, which harmonised the chapters and fixed the final wording from February 1976, was chaired by the Socialist António Macedo; its main rapporteur was the Communist deputy Vital Moreira.2 sources2 sources

Politics kept breaking in. The rules set aside a period “before the order of the day” for current affairs. Deputies of the PCP and the small MDP/CDE opposed it, arguing that under the pact the Assembly existed only to write a constitution. The Socialists, the PPD, the CDS and the UDP defended it, and deputies used it to question the government and debate the crisis of the day.1 source1 source

In November the crisis reached the building itself. On 12 November 1975 striking construction workers gathered outside São Bento and would not let most of the deputies leave. “We couldn't get out,” the Socialist deputy Helena Roseta recalled fifty years later.3 sources3 sources

The military crisis of 25 November 1975, told in another article, ended the revolutionary period. In December, with the PS and the PPD pressing for it, the new Council of the Revolution reopened the pact. The second MFA-parties pact, signed on 26 February 1976, abolished the MFA Assembly as an organ of sovereignty and provided for a President elected directly by the voters, which the Constituent Assembly approved on 4 March.2 sources2 sources

The Assembly changed as it worked. Barros reported that 62 deputies had resigned their seats, most of them to take up public posts, and that the Communist Herculano de Carvalho had died suddenly. Sixty of the 63 vacancies were filled, so 247 deputies sat at the end.1 source1 source

The finished text ran to 312 articles. Its preamble said that the MFA had “overthrown the fascist regime” and that the Assembly affirmed the people's decision to defend national independence, guarantee fundamental rights, establish the principles of democracy, secure the rule of law and “open the way to a socialist society”.1 source1 source

Article 2 gave the democratic state the goal of ensuring “the transition to socialism” by creating the conditions for the working classes to exercise power democratically. Article 83 declared every nationalisation carried out after 25 April 1974 an “irreversible conquest of the working classes”. Agrarian reform, which was to expropriate the great landed estates, was “one of the fundamental instruments for the construction of the socialist society”.1 source1 source

The soldiers kept a formal place. Article 3 said the MFA, “as guarantor of the democratic conquests and of the revolutionary process”, took part in the exercise of sovereignty “in alliance with the people”. The Council of the Revolution, made up of the President, the armed forces chiefs and fourteen officers chosen by the army, navy and air force, became an organ of sovereignty. It advised the President, judged whether laws were constitutional and legislated on military matters.2 sources2 sources

For legal questions the Council relied on a Constitutional Commission of judges and jurists, chaired by one of its own members, which also acted as the final court of appeal in constitutional cases. Ernesto Melo Antunes presided over it for its whole life, from 1976 to 1983, with Vítor Alves standing in now and then.1 source1 source

The same text was also a long charter of liberties. It banned the death penalty “in any case” and torture, guaranteed the right to strike, gave spouses equal rights and forbade discrimination against children born outside marriage. It promised a national health service that was “universal, general and free” and basic schooling that was universal, compulsory and free.1 source1 source

The CDS stood alone. In its declaration of vote, Vítor Sá Machado said the party was proud to have helped write the rights and the break with dictatorship into the text, and that it voted no because “only in democracy is it possible to say no”. Its objection was that a constitution written in one revolutionary year tied the hands of later voters.1 source1 source

At 22:13 the Assembly met again in the presence of President Francisco da Costa Gomes, the prime minister, members of the Council of the Revolution and the diplomatic corps, after a band of the Republican National Guard played the anthem. Barros gave a short report on the Assembly's work, ending with the wish that the deputies had given their country a constitution that could, in its essence, withstand the test of time. The decree approving the Constitution was read and he signed it. Costa Gomes then promulgated it in the chamber.1 source1 source

Costa Gomes reminded the deputies that, under Law 3/74 of 14 May 1974, the revolution's provisional constitutional law, their Assembly would now dissolve automatically. The session ended at 22:50 with the anthem. The Constitution had to be published by 10 April, and it came into force on 25 April 1976, the day Portugal elected its first Assembly of the Republic.3 sources3 sources

The text set its own first test. It gave the Assembly of the Republic's second legislature power to revise it, with two-thirds of the deputies present. Later revisions could follow every five years, or at any time if four-fifths of the deputies agreed.1 source1 source

The first revision was approved on 12 August 1982 with 195 votes, from the PSD, the CDS, the PS and three small parties, against the votes of the PCP and the UDP, and published on 30 September.2 sources2 sources

It abolished the Council of the Revolution and struck out the MFA's share in sovereignty, though the preamble still names the MFA. Portugal became a “democratic state based on the rule of law”. Article 2 kept the transition to socialism, but the democratic exercise of power by the working classes gave way to “economic, social and cultural democracy”.3 sources3 sources

The 1982 revision also created a Council of State to advise the President, and a Constitutional Court of 13 judges, ten elected by parliament and three co-opted by them. The President could now dismiss a government only when needed to ensure the regular functioning of democratic institutions. The judges took office on 6 April 1983 and gave their first ruling on 31 May. The state had bought the Palácio Ratton in Lisbon for the court in 1982.2 sources2 sources

The second revision, approved on 1 June 1989 and published on 8 July, opened the economy. It ended the irreversibility of the nationalisations and let state firms be reprivatised under a framework law. Article 1 lost its “classless society” in favour of “a free, just and solidary society”, Article 2 dropped the transition to socialism, the health service became “tending to be free” according to citizens' means, and national referendums entered the Constitution.2 sources2 sources

The text in force has 296 articles. It still opens with the preamble of 1976, unchanged apart from capitalisation, including the promise to “open the way to a socialist society”. Article 1 now commits the Republic to building a free, just and solidary society, and Article 2 describes a democratic state based on the rule of law.2 sources2 sources

Many of the 1976 guarantees are still there. Article 24 says that “in no case will there be the death penalty”. Article 13 forbids discrimination on grounds including sex, race, religion, political conviction and sexual orientation. Article 64 promises a national health service that is universal and general and, taking account of citizens' economic and social conditions, tending to be free.1 source1 source

Changing it is deliberately hard. A revision needs two-thirds of the deputies in office, and the President cannot refuse to promulgate it. Article 288 still bars any revision that touches national independence, the republican form of government, the separation of church and state, citizens' rights and freedoms, universal suffrage, proportional representation or the independence of the courts.1 source1 source

No revision has been completed since 2005. A process opened in 2010 lapsed when the government of José Sócrates fell in 2011 and parliament was dissolved. In May 2026 Chega handed in a revision project. In June it and the PSD asked to put off the deadline for projects until December (reports give both 20 and 30 December), saying they wanted to finish a revision by the summer of 2027. The Assembly's president, José Pedro Aguiar-Branco, then returned Chega's project before formally admitting it, so the 30 days in which other parties may table their own projects had not started.4 sources4 sources

Parliament marked the fiftieth anniversary on 2 April 2026. President António José Seguro called the Constitution the country's “compass”, and Aguiar-Branco said it was not untouchable.1 source1 source

André Ventura of Chega opened by honouring the victims of the FP-25, a far-left armed group of the 1980s, accused many of the constituent deputies of their deaths and said the text was “not a sacred bible”. Several former constituent deputies in the galleries, among them Helena Roseta and Jerónimo de Sousa, walked out. Speaking for the CDS, Paulo Núncio recalled that his party had voted against in 1976.1 source1 source