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RESEARCH PRODUCT

The finger of Beelzebub. The consecration of judicial review of constitutionality in Portugal in 1911

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Without entirely breaking with the political review of constitutionality established in the 19th century, Portugal, which became a republic after the October 1910 revolution, decided to enshrine judicial review of constitutionality in its 1911 Constitution. The choice of the American model of diffuse review was intended to break with the main guarantee offered in the days of 'granted constitutionalism', when the moderating power of the King acted as guarantor of the Constitution alongside the political chambers. This was the aim of the promoter of this legal revolution, the law professor Afonso Costa, a strong man of the First Republic, who was able to convert his initially hostile republican colleagues and friends to his cause - as he himself had been before his change of mind, which could be seen in his lectures from 1902. This consecration was ambiguous, however, due to the control of the judiciary by Afonso Costa himself, whom the Salazarist professors castigated by calling him "Beelzebub" and by proving that his judicial control of constitutionality was condemned to remain a dead letter.