The COVID-19 Pandemic and the State of Emergency: Lessons from Portugal

The present chapter analyses the normative response of Portugal to the coronavirus crisis. As in other European Member States, the reaction to the pandemic was developed through a combination of enactment of the constitutional state of emergency, in the first and third phases, with the resort to the statutory administrative emergency regime. Under both frameworks, there has been a strengthening of the role of the executive at the expense of a parliamentary retreat. This chapter covers both responses to the pandemic and their shortcomings mainly concerning the lack of democratic legitimation of the fight against the pandemic in the face of a parliamentary circumvention and abdication.