Portugal’s President today accepted the appointment of Anabela Rodrigues to the post of Minister of Internal Affairs, replacing Miguel Macedo, who announced his resignation on Sunday in the wake of the first wave of arrests in the Golden Visa corruption enquiry.
Prof. Doutora Anabela Maria Pinto de Miranda Rodrigues formally will be sworn in on Wednesday at noon at the Palace of Belém, according to the website of the President's Office which confirmed that the resignation of Miguel Macedo was accepted.
Anabela Rodrigues holds a PhD in Legal and Criminal Sciences and is the first woman to be appointed as a Minister of Internal Affairs.
The new minister graduated in law at the University of Coimbra in 1976, and was director of the Centre for Judicial Studies from 2004 to 2009, by appointment of the then Justice Minister José Pedro Aguiar Branco, the current minister of Defence.
Her appointment to the Centre for Judicial Studies generated controversy at the time, leading to all the trainee judges quitting in protest and criticism from the Association of the Portuguese Union of Judges and Prosecutors.
More concerning was the Council of Europe vetoing her name when Rodrigues was proposed for the the Court of Human Rights.
In 2010, Anabela Rodrigues was on the list put forward by Portugal to elect a judge to the European Court of Human Rights. The list containing three names and included Paulo Pinto de Albuquerque and João Manuel da Silva Miguel.
The list was rejected by the Council of Europe for lacking in quality, a decision that was said at the time to have ‘surprised’ Portugal’s legal sector but in reality was an embarrassment.
Anabela Rodrigues considered the decision "offended her good professional name" and eventually withdrew her candidacy.
