Catarina Sarmento e Castro (born 1970) is a Portuguese jurist and politician. As a member of the Portuguese Socialist Party (PS), she became a deputy in the Portuguese Assembly of the Republic in the January

2022 Portuguese legislative election Early legislative elections were held on 30 January 2022 in Portugal to elect members of the Assembly of the Republic to the 15th Legislature of the Third Portuguese Republic. All 230 seats to the Assembly of the Republic were up for election. ...

, representing the

Leiria District The District of Leiria ( pt, Distrito de Leiria ) is a district located in Centro region of Portugal, divided between the traditional provinces of Beira Litoral and Estremadura. It borders on the north with district of Coimbra, on the east with ...

. Between 2019 and 2022 she served as Secretary of State for Human Resources and Former Combatants. A professor in the Faculty of Law at the

University of Coimbra The University of Coimbra (UC; pt, Universidade de Coimbra, ) is a Public university, public research university in Coimbra, Portugal. First established in Lisbon in 1290, it went through a number of relocations until moving permanently to Coi ...

, she has also served as a judge in the

Constitutional Court A constitutional court is a high court that deals primarily with constitutional law. Its main authority is to rule on whether laws that are challenged are in fact unconstitutional, i.e. whether they conflict with constitutionally established ...

. She was appointed Minister of Justice in March 2022, following the

, when the PS won an overall majority.

Early life and education

Catarina Teresa Rola Sarmento e Castro was born in

Coimbra Coimbra (, also , , or ) is a city and a municipality in Portugal. The population of the municipality at the 2011 census was 143,397, in an area of . The fourth-largest urban area in Portugal after Lisbon, Porto Metropolitan Area, Porto, and Bra ...

on 16 May 1970. Her father was Osvaldo Alberto do Rosário Sarmento e Castro, a former Socialist Party deputy in the Assembly of the Republic. She obtained undergraduate and master's degrees, as well as a PhD, from the Faculty of Law at the University of Coimbra and also studied for a postgraduate diploma at the

Université catholique de Louvain The Université catholique de Louvain (also known as the Catholic University of Louvain, the English translation of its French name, and the University of Louvain, its official English name) is Belgium's largest French-speaking university. It ...

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...

, with a dissertation entitled ''The notion of victim in the European Convention of the Rights of Man''.

Career

Sarmento e Castro has been teaching at the University of Coimbra since 1999 and is now an assistant professor. Courses she has taught have included constitutional law and political science; police law; human rights; database protection; administrative courts; public procurement; and labour law. She has addressed these issues in various publications. She has also taught at the

NOVA University Lisbon NOVA University Lisbon ( pt, Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, ), or just NOVA, is a Portuguese public university whose rectorate is located in Campolide, Lisbon. Founded in 1973, it is the newest of the public universities in the Portuguese capital ...

, the

University of Lisbon The University of Lisbon (ULisboa; pt, Universidade de Lisboa, ) is a public research university in Lisbon, and the largest university in Portugal. It was founded in 2013, from the merger of two previous public universities located in Lisbon, th ...

and the

Catholic University of Portugal The Catholic University of Portugal (Portuguese: ''Universidade Católica Portuguesa'', pronounced nivɨɾsiˈðad(ɨ) kɐˈtɔlikɐ puɾtuˈɣezɐ, also referred to as Católica or UCP for short, is a concordat university (non-state-run univers ...

. Among her other roles, Sarmento e Castro has been a member of the advisory board of the Attorney General's Office and a member of the Superior Council of Administrative and Fiscal Courts. In 2010 she was elected to be a judge at the Constitutional Court, for a term of nine years. She has also been a member of the National Data Protection Commission. On 26 October 2019, she became the new Secretary of State for Human Resources and Former Combatants in the Ministry of National Defence. Sarmento e Castro was elected to the Portuguese National Assembly in the January 2022 election. Standing for the Socialist Party (PS) she was third on the list of PS candidates for the

, in which the PS won five seats. Nationally, the PS won an overall majority of seats. Subsequently, she was appointed as Minister of Justice.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sarmento e Castro, Catarina 1970 births Living people Socialist Party (Portugal) politicians Members of the Assembly of the Republic (Portugal) Women members of the Assembly of the Republic (Portugal) University of Coimbra alumni Academic staff of the University of Coimbra Portuguese jurists Women government ministers of Portugal Female justice ministers