This is a lesson Eurozone member-countries in bailout should learn: that Troika imposed and government applied bailout terms can be against the national Constitutions that aim to protect the citizens in these countries.
“Portugal’s Constitutional Court has ruled several key articles of the 2013 state budget unconstitutional.
It rejected four out of nine contested austerity measures from the budget.
It will deprive the state of some 1.5bn euros (£1.3bn) in savings the government had said were necessary to meet the terms of a eurozone bailout.
The court rejected a measure to scrap summer holiday bonuses for public sector workers and pensioners, as well as cuts to unemployment and sickness benefits.
The court’s decision came almost exactly three months after Portugal’s President Anibal Cavaco Silva formally asked the court to determine whether retirees and public workers were being treated unfairly or not, under the terms of the country’s constitution.
For most Portuguese workers, the annual tax rises are equivalent to more than a month’s wages. The standard income tax rate is rising from 24.5% to 28.5%.
The savings are Portugal’s toughest in living memory, aimed at meeting the terms of a 78bn-euro (£64bn) bailout.
Portugal’s government will have to either find other ways for savings or re-negotiate the bailout terms.
(full story BBC)
Summer and even Christmas bonuses have been scrapped in Greece, unemployment allowances have been cut to a minimum, sickness and disability benefits almost disappeared and lowering the minimum wage makes covering basic needs impossible. But even if the Greek Constitutional Court ruled the ’emergency property tax’ would be against the Constitution if collected for more than two years, Samaras’ coalition government found a new name for it.
PS I suppose, governments need to re-read national Constitutions and recapitulate the protection of fundamental rights.
