Aplicação do princípio da igualdade na legislação experimental em Portugal

The experimental legislation follows the development of legislative evaluation practices. Being a legislative technique used not only with the aim of gathering political and social consensus, but also, especially in controversial matters, to provide data and information that will serve as basis for a clarified and justified legislative decision. The characteristic features of the experimental laws are its limited application in time and/or in territory and the prediction, in the law itself, of an evaluation after the experimental period. The application of an experimental law just in a specific geographic area raises constitutional issues because of the implications of the principle of equality. Indeed, the principle of equality, despite admitting some treatment differences between people, commands that these differences have to be legitimate, reasonable and proportional, namely, not arbitrary. Besides the constitutionality problem for the violation of the principle of equality, the experimental laws may also consist of laws restricting fundamental rights and be the cause of the liability of the State, within its legislative function.