António de Almeida Santos

Career

António de Almeida Santos was a jurist who graduated as a licentiate in Law from the Faculty of Law of the University of Coimbra in 1950. In 1952 he went to Lourenço Marques, Overseas Province of Mozambique (now Maputo, Mozambique) where he was a lawyer from 1953 to 1974 and a Member of the Group of Democrats of Mozambique. Following the Carnation Revolution in Portugal, he returned to Lisbon.

As an Independent he was Minister of the Interterritorial Coordination in the first four Provisional Governments, of the Social Communication in the 6th, and Minister of Justice in the 1st Constitutional Government of Mário Soares. In those functions he entered the Socialist Party (PS) in its 2nd Congress. In the 2nd Constitutional Government he was the Adjoint Minister to the Prime Minister of Portugal Mário Soares and in the 6th Constitutional Government he was Minister of State and of Parliamentary Affairs. He was also the President of the Parliamentary Group of PS between 16 October 1992 and 10 November 1993, and the President of PS in 1992, reelected in 1994.

He was elected the 10th President of the Assembly of the Republic in the 7th and 8th Legislatures (31 October 1995 – 4 April 2002).

António de Almeida Santos was also a Member of the Portuguese Council of State from 1985 until his death, as the President of the Assembly of the Republic from 31 October 1995 to 4 April 2002, and from then on as a Member elected by the Assembly of the Republic. He died in January 2016, aged 89, after a brief illness.

Decorations

He received the Grand Cross of the Order of Liberty and in 2003 was awarded the North-South Prize.

Family

He was married. One of his daughters died of a drug overdose, which led to his becoming a crusader in the fight against drugs. He defended drug legalization.