Constitutional Court Ruling No. 268/2022: On a self-fulfilling prophecy?

Abstract

Until the Constitutional Court's (TC) decision no. 268/2022, it had been a long time since the Portuguese courts' pronouncements had caused such a stir within legal dogmatics. Proportionally, it is also hard to imagine a time when a judgment had per se entailed such wide-ranging expected consequences, the immediate consequence of a judgment of unconstitutionality with generally binding force (article 282(1) of the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic), to which must be added the particularity of contending with the adjective criminal branch.