Petition against delays in analyzing nationality applications gathers thousands of signatures
What should be a right guaranteed by law has, in practice, become a long wait without any plausible justification: thousands of families have been waiting for more than three years for their application for Portuguese nationality to be analyzed. For this reason, Martins Castro has started a collective petition which has already surpassed two thousand signatures in the Portuguese parliament so that the entire affected community obtains concrete responses by requesting that:
- The IRN (Institute of Registries and Notaries) comply with legal deadlines.
- Let there be effective accountability when these deadlines are ignored without justification.
- Structural reforms are analyzed and implemented, which make the system more efficient, fair and transparent.
Portuguese legislation is clear: the maximum period for decisions in administrative processes, including those regarding nationality, is 90 business days. It's in the Article 128 of the Code of Administrative Procedure and reinforced by itself Regulation of Portuguese Nationality. Even so, this deadline has been systematically disregarded.
The numbers confirm the problem: according to the Secretary of State for Justice, more than 1.4 million orders of nationality have only been filed in the last six years. The result? Processes have been stalled and the community is waiting to make dreams come true and have access to the opportunities that are their right.
The impact goes far beyond bureaucracy: it is a direct violation of fundamental principles of the Portuguese Constitution, like the right to good public administration it's the right to effective judicial protection.
Our commitment is not only to our clients, but to all those who legitimately seek to exercise their right to be a Portuguese citizen. See more information on here.
Because postponing citizenship is denying identity. And this can no longer be tolerated. There are already more than two thousand signatures, be part of this movement:
Click here to sign the petition
Do you have questions about how to subscribe? Watch the step-by-step tutorial.
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