DRAFT RESOLUTION # 515 /X

Appropriate institutional and legal solutions to the

full exercise of the right to vote

I-Exposition of reasons

The rights of participation and suffrage have been enshrined in Articles 48 and 49º of the

Constitution of the Portuguese Republic.

In order to realize the principles and rights laid down in Articles 48º and

49º of the Constitution, legal diplomas regulating the elections have been passed

for the organs of sovereignty, regional autonomic power and local authorities, of the

European Parliament, as well as the national and local referendums.

The constitutional precepts determine that they have a right of suffrage all the

citizens greater than 18 years old, ressaving the incapacities provided for in the law

general. Having as an essential feature of the right of suffrage, the

personality of the vote, it is to be stressed that the right to vote is untransmittable and

untenable of representation or proxy, and should result immediately

of the manifestation of will of the voter, without intervention of any

manifestation of will alheia.

This constitutional principle does not, however, have the best match

practice in the case of people with illness or disability because of lack of access to

some of the appropriate conditions for the purpose. In fact, many are the

citizens and citizenships with diseases and disabilities that are coming limited in the

exercise of that fundamental right that is the right to suffrage with autonomy

and secrecy, specifically the blind, the partially-sighted, the people with

parkinson's disease, with nanism and gigantism.

Another dimension of this difficulty is the one that results, too, from inaccessibility

of some persons with illness or disability to the information disseminated during

the election campaign, specifically the blind, partially sighted and surfaced, what

hinders them of the formation of an enlightened opinion.

It is thus important to know the universe of people affected by the diseases or

limiting deficiencies of the electoral act and the best solutions, for the

formation of the enlightened will and the practice of the electoral act, in addition to the

response today adopted from the appeal to the vote accompanied as a solution

legally provided for in the Portuguese legal order for some citizens and

citizenships with reduced capacity.

II-Thus, the Assembly of the Republic resolves, in the terms of the provisions of the

(b) of Article 156º of the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic,

recommend to the Government to promote:

a) The identification of the diseases and disabilities that generate difficulties

special in the access to the practice of the vote.

b) The best appropriate institutional and legal solutions that guarantee the

full exercise of the right to vote, with autonomy and secrecy of the

citizens and citizenships with reduced capacity.

Palace of Saint Benedict, June 24, 2009

O (a) s Deputy (a) s