The Journalist Card Commission has been without a president since February. Equal voting results in a deadlock in the election

The tie in the votes for the appointment of the president of the Commission for the Professional Journalist's Card (CCPJ) has meant that the election process has dragged on since February. The problem does not appear to have a solution in sight, given that the legislation in force does not provide for mechanisms to resolve this type of situation , but the CCPJ indicates that its bodies “have been functioning regularly, albeit with the normal limitations arising from the absence of a president ”.

After Licínia Girão's term ended, the process of co-opting the new president of the Commission for the Professional Journalist's Card ( CCPJ ) began on February 19, with the new Plenary taking office, followed by a period for presenting candidates. Two names were then put forward for voting, which divided the number of voters equally, with neither of them managing to obtain the majority required by law. The process has dragged on ever since.

It should be noted that the president of the CCPJ must be “a jurist of recognized merit and experience in the area of ​​social communication , co-opted, by an absolute majority , by the eight journalists who make up the CCPJ”, as stated in the Organization and Functioning Regime of the CCPJ and the Professional Accreditation of Journalists . The journalist and jurist Luísa Meireles and the lawyer Henrique Pires Teixeira are the candidates nominated and who have been voted on.

A law graduate, Luísa Meireles is the current information director of the Lusa news agency, a position she has held since 2018. Before that, she was a journalist at Expresso for almost three decades.

In turn, Henrique Pires Teixeira , who was president of the CCPJ during the 2015/2018 three-year period, has been a lawyer since 1982. He was also director of the newspaper “A Comarca”, between 1991 and 2013, and lecturer on the module “the media and the legislative framework” in the postgraduate course in regional press at the Faculty of Arts of Coimbra (2008/2009).

From 1998 onwards, he was also a member of the board of the Portuguese Press Association for several years, representing which he chaired the general assembly of the APCT (Portuguese Association for the Control of Circulation and Print Run). He also worked for the newspaper “Comarca de Figueiró” (between 1975 and 1983) and for the Mozambican newspaper “Notícias da Beira” (1969 and 1974).

The voters, who have been distributed in equal numbers, are the four members elected by the journalists ( Cláudia Alexandra Correia Mendes, Paulo Jorge Gonçalves Agostinho, Mariana Esteves de Oliveira and Isabel Alexandra Meias Inácio) and another four members appointed by the sector operators (Cláudia Marisa Ferreira Maia, Paulo Alexandre Ribeiro da Silva, Luís Alberto Loureiro Mendonça and Albérico Coelho Fernandes).

However, unless one of the parties gives in, it is not expected that one of these names will be elected and that the process will be concluded. This is because “ the legislation in force does not provide mechanisms for resolving situations of tied voting , only requiring that the co-optation be carried out by an absolute majority of members, so the negotiation will have to remain ongoing ”, the CCPJ told +M.

The process of co-opting the new president and subsequent negotiations will be resumed again in the next Plenary, on June 27, “where the matter will once again be subject to consideration”.

Given the lack of leadership — visible even by the empty space on the “Message from the President” page on the CCPJ website — the bodies of this entity (i.e. the Plenary, Secretariat and Disciplinary Section) “have been functioning regularly, albeit with the normal limitations arising from the absence of a president ”, the CCPJ also states . “Only the Plenary and the Secretariat are not yet fully constituted, following this absence. The day-to-day management of the CCPJ has been ensured by the executive body (Secretariat) ”, it adds.

Taking into account reports by some journalists of delays in the processes of renewing professional licenses , the CCPJ concedes that “with the entry into office of the new journalists who make up the CCPJ bodies, it was necessary to redistribute tasks , including that of analyzing the processes of issuing, renewing, suspending and revoking professional titles”, a function that is being performed by two members.

However, it is planned, “ in the very short term, to reinforce this area of ​​activity by two other journalists from the CCPJ ”, adds this entity.