Recently, pompous declarations were made about the Vitorino Nemésio literary prize, which was created by Resolution 12//2024, of October 7, of the Legislative Assembly of the Azores; the idea came from the leadership, was received with stately circumstances and was unanimously approved.

The event really deserves a big round of applause. Vitorino Nemésio is a huge asset to Terceira Island, the Azores, and the country; he always deserves our respect and admiration. The awards have the merit of boosting literacy, education, knowledge, and human dignity.

Unfortunately, the event is more of an offense to Vitorino Nemésio’s memory than an elevation. He had already been offended when he was blamed for the very useful but very sad, terrible, and poor Vitorino Nemésio Expressway. And now the deputies, showing dubious civic, political, and artistic culture, are approving important documents as if they weren’t. The Resolution has two original sins.

The Resolution has two original sins: one is that it is entirely illegal because the legal justification is exclusively for the subject matter and the form of a regional legislative decree following the Political Statute; the wrong rules of the Statute are pointed out. After all, they are those of regional laws of autonomous origin, while the correct rules would be others and for resolutions. In other words, almost fifty years into political autonomy – our parliament doesn’t know how to distinguish a parliamentary law from a parliamentary resolution; worse, it uses statutory and constitutional mechanisms exclusively for the political sovereignty of parliamentary law and doesn’t use the correct mechanisms for other normative acts; what’s more, it confuses two forms of entirely different acts, offending the sovereign hegemony of the law as a solemn act of political autonomy. Vitorino Nemésio deserves better.

The other sin is the monetary value of the prize: it is two thousand five hundred euros, plus the edition of three hundred copies and a 10% premium on top of that; in other words, the prize consists of around two thousand eight hundred and sixty euros and the edition (an average of 12 euros per book) and the edition of 300 copies. Now, the Regional Government, through resolutions 12/2014, of January 24 and 68/2016, of March 31, has already created the Daniel de Sá prize, which in 2014 provided a prize of twelve thousand euros and published the work. In the 2016 version, the prize became six thousand euros and publishing. In other words, in the Autonomous Region of the Azores, Daniel de Sá was worth 12,000 euros for the Regional Government and the edition to taste; and after two years, it was worth 6,000 euros and the edition; Vitorino Nemésio is worth 2,860 euros for the Legislative Assembly of the Region, and the edition is limited to 300 copies. Álamo Oliveira’s literary prize, created by the Angra do Heroísmo City Council in 2023, is worth ten thousand euros and 250 copies.

In other words, we have to verbalize the unfortunate conclusion that the Autonomous Region of the Azores does not respect the memory and the civic and cultural value of Vitorino Nemésio. How will we convince ourselves that parliamentarians respect the people of the Azores – if the most important citizens don’t? This case seems simple, but it is a portrait of the Region’s normative creation: sad because it is unfortunate and weak because it is ignorant.

Anyone who needs the technical justification for this text can send an e-mail to

arnaldo.ourique@gmail.com

Arnaldo Ourique is a specialist in constitutional law and has done extensive research on European Regions, especially the Azorean Autonomy.

NOVIDADES will feature occasional opinion pieces from various leading thinkers and writers from the Azores to give the diaspora and those interested in the current Azores a sense of the significant opinions on some of the archipelago’s issues.

Translated to English as a community outreach program from the Portuguese Beyond Borders Institute (PBBI) and the Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures Department (MCLL)