Teachers Ask Portugal's Top Court to Reinstate Civil-Service Pension Rights

Many Portuguese teachers have spent the past two years wondering whether the pension they once paid into will ever again recognise them as full members. Their unions are now pressing the issue to its constitutional conclusion, arguing that a recent statute that bars former subscribers from returning to the Caixa Geral de Aposentações undermines not only household budgets but also the credibility of the State itself.

What is at stake

A single paragraph hidden in Law 45/2024 has frozen thousands of public employees—chiefly educators—out of the civil-service pension fund. Union lawyers say the clause forces professionals who left the public sector after 2006 and later came back to accept the less generous general Social Security regime, even though they had already contributed to the CGA for years. Because retirement rules shape early-career decisions, union officials frame the dispute as a question of “constitutional confidence”: if government can retroactively rewrite the rules, long-term planning becomes impossible.

Legal backdrop

The controversy originates in the 2005 Budget Law, which closed fresh admissions to the CGA from 1 January 2006. Courts subsequently ruled that returning staff could re-enter, treating their career break as an exception. Parliament tried to reverse that trend last December by passing Law 45/2024, branding it an “authentic interpretation” of the 2005 text. Yet in a string of rulings, capped by Constitutional Court ruling 689/2025, judges concluded that the new wording infringed the principle of trust, the ban on harmful retroactivity and basic legal certainty. In practice, the decisions benefited only the individuals who sued. Broader effect requires either a fresh legislative act or a declaration of unconstitutionality with general force—precisely what the teachers are now asking.

Teachers’ arguments

The Federação Nacional dos Professores (Fenprof) cites four constitutional grounds. First, the State must protect legitimate expectations created by its own laws. Second, Parliament cannot smuggle new eligibility tests into a text while labelling the move “interpretative.” Third, ignoring prior court victories offends the separation of powers, they say, because lawmakers would be overturning final judgments. Finally, unions invoke articles 55 and 56 of the Constitution, which oblige them to defend the rights of their members when those rights are threatened by legislation.

Constitutional Court’s position so far

More than a dozen individual complaints have reached the Palácio Ratton. In every published decision the justices sided with employees, permitting reinscription and criticizing the statute’s vagueness. But the rulings stopped short of issuing the so-called “erga omnes” effect that would bind all administrations. Under Portuguese procedure, only the President, the Ombudsman, the Attorney-General or one-fifth of the MPs can trigger that broader review. Fenprof therefore delivered its dossier to Procurador-Geral Amadeu Guerra, urging him to start the process.

Human impact in classrooms

For many professionals, the dispute is not academic. Finance ministry estimates suggest a typical secondary-school teacher loses several hundred euros a month in future pension income when shifted to Social Security. Unions also note weaker coverage for illness allowances and surviving-spouse benefits. Some educators report postponing retirement, while younger colleagues fear accepting scholarships abroad lest the absence sever their CGA link. The mood, says one Lisbon headmaster, is a mix of “frustration and quiet panic.”

Political and fiscal implications

Reversing Law 45/2024 could add roughly €30 million a year to long-term pension liabilities, according to an internal working paper seen by journalists. Government officials argue that fairness demands comparable treatment between recent recruits and staff who left and returned, warning of inter-generational inequity. Opposition parties counter that the Treasury’s bill remains modest next to the cost of litigation plus the reputational damage when the State loses in court. Meanwhile, civil-service reformers worry that shifting rules mid-career discourages talent from rotating between public and private sectors—one of the targets of earlier reforms.

What happens next

If the Attorney-General files the request, the Constitutional Court must decide within 45 days whether to open full hearings. A finding of unconstitutionality with general binding force would automatically reinstate thousands of teachers in the CGA and void the contested paragraphs of Law 45/2024. Should the Court decline, unions plan a second wave of individual suits timed to capitalise on ruling 689/2025. Either way, the debate over trust in Portuguese public administration now runs far deeper than a pension line on a payslip.