INTERCULTURAL DIALOGUE IN PORTUGAL: A LEGAL-ANTHROPOLOGICAL ANALYSIS ON STATE INTERVENTION IN MINORITY ISSUES

Portugal enacted 1999 the Protection of Children and Young People in Danger Act (PCYPDA), intending to guarantee the children’s well-being and integral development in an ever-evolving plural society, for which the notion of parental care is a contentious matter. In analyzing the PCYPDA two decades later, this analysis notes the substantial case law associated with it that constitutes the so-called Portuguese multicultural jurisprudence (Foblets and Dundes Renteln 2009). Those cases concern mainly state intervention in families with ethnic backgrounds­—Roma and Afro-descendant peoples—and suggest an “intercultural dialogue.” This paper engages with the case law related to the PCYPDA through an anthropologically-informed approach to legal research (Dembour 2020). It addresses the questions of to which extent state intervention is necessary for family matters and the modalities of such intervention. Notably, the PCYPDA had impact on an international level with the case Soares de Melo v Portugal (2016), which condemned Portugal for violating the right to respect for private and family life (Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights) due to the placement of Afro-descendant children for adoption on grounds of the mother’s poverty and refusal to undergo sterilization.