Constitutional law and crisis

The Portuguese mechanism of judicial review was instituted by the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic of 1976, approved after the military and democratic Revolution of 1974. The outbursts of the economic crisis in 2008, and, later on, the impact of the Eurozone sovereign debt crisis have had particularly severe effects in Portugal. During the crisis period, and up to 2014, the Constitutional Court delivered a significant number of decisions regarding austerity measures. The implementation of the austerity measures has had economic, social and fiscal consequences that raise several constitutional issues. The vast majority of these measures have been challenged in procedures of abstract review of constitutionality. The Constitutional Court finally analysed if the imposition of sacrifices only to public workers, to ensure the fulfilment of a public goal that benefits the whole political community, violated fundamental constitutional principles, such as the principle of equality.