ABSTRACT

After more than 20 years of democracy, the Portuguese parliament persists as an institution distant from the ordinary citizen. As several analysts have observed, the main links established are the one between parliament and party and the one between citizens and party. Although this tendency was slightly contradicted after alterations introduced to the Rules of Procedures in 1991, the PG remains the main core of Portuguese parliamentary life. The distance between the Portuguese parliament and citizens is a problem commonly referred to both by members of the public and by politicians. In particular, since the beginning of the 1990s, that issue has been recurrent, as the debate on the democratic deficit increased, partly due to the experience of an absolute majority in parliament. Since 1993, a recommendation can be more objective, actually involving parliament in the resolution of a problem: the ‘Diligencia conciliadora’, that is, a conciliatory initiative.