final decision on concrete measures to be taken at national level is adopted by the concerned Member States’ (ECB Questionnaire response, p. 3, available at https://polcms.secure.europarl.europa.eu/cmsdata/upload/f13d8652-15b7-4945-beb7ce52a447c7d7/att_20140114ATT77317-4182200006287211655.pdf) that have to ‘ensure that its obligations regarding fundamental rights are respected’ (Commission Questionnaire response, p. 5, available at https://polcms.secure.europarl.europa.eu/cmsdata/upload/db6df1cd-bcdf-437f-aa6e4f1aaa16f371/att_20140114ATT77315-2012338784114975647.pdf). On this topic, see Kilpatrick (2014: 394396). LXI ECJ, Case C-346/05, Monique Chateignier, ECLI:EU:C:2006:711, at 18. See also ECJ, Case C-17/92, Teckal, ECLI:EU:C:1993:172, at 8. LXII ECJ, Case C-264/12, Fidelidade Mundial, EU:C:2014:2036, at 4, and ECJ, Case C-665/13, Via Directa, EU:C:2014:2327, at 4. LXIII ECJ, Case C-264/12, Fidelidade Mundial, EU:C:2014:2036, at 19, and ECJ, Case C-665/13, Via Directa, EU:C:2014:2327, at 13. LXIV ECJ, Cases C-8/15 to C-10/95, Ledra, ECLI:EU:C:2016:701, at 91. LXV Joerges (2014: 44) identifies in the Portuguese Constitutional Court case law a 'signal' of judicial opposition against the European crisis management, although it recognizes that it is a rather weak signal since the implementation of austerity measures was objected on the basis of the violation of the principle of proportionality and equality. LXVI In this case, the Portuguese Constitutional Court limited the effects of the declaration of unconstitutionality of the provisions that suspended the holiday and Christmas salaries in the public sector. The Constitutional Court decision had no practical effects because the cuts were allowed to be applied until the end of the tax year (which was the temporal limit for the State Budget Act for 2012). This was the broader application ever adopted of Article 282 (4) of the Constitution. This provision allows the Constitutional Court to restrict the effects of a decision of unconstitutionality based on ‘an exceptionally important public interest’. LXVII A thorough explanation in English of the most relevant decisions of the so-called “austerity case law” of the Portuguese Constitutional Court was made by Canotilho, Violante and Lanceiro (2015: 155-183). LXVIII In case 353/2012 (State Budget Act for 2012), the Portuguese Constitutional Court recognized that the country was ‘in a very serious economic and financial situation, in which it (was) important to achieve the public deficit objectives set out in the memoranda of understanding in order to ensure the financial solvability of the State’, but declared that the austerity program had to be applied fairly. The Court did not adopt a 'crisis law' standard of adjudication and refuse to accept the argument of the financial emergency of the State as a blank justification for austerity measures (Urbano 2014: 14-15). Instead, it went through a case-by-case analysis of each measure, accepting some (mostly transitory) and rejecting others, either because they breached the principle of equality, failed the proportionality test or did not meet legitimate expectations. This case law was praised by some commentators [the most notorious being Novais 2014], but criticized by others that accused the Court of inconsistency and of engaging in judicial activism [Almeida Ribeiro and Pereira Coutinho 2014]. LXIX See, however, the second update of the MoU – quoted above in Section 1 – that requires the suspension of the holiday and Christmas monthly salary payments in para. 1.8., i). LXX In case 163/90 (23 May 1990), the Portuguese Constitutional Court recognized that it is bound by the duty to refer preliminary questions to the Court of Justice foreseen in Article 267 (3) TFUE. Remarkably, however, more than a quarter of Century later, the Court never had any doubts that required the preliminary intervention of the Court of Justice. Not even when in Case 141/2015 (25 February 2015) declared that the principle of equality (Article 13 of the Constitution) was breached by a provision that conditioned the grant of a social benefit to a one-year minimum legal residence in the Portuguese territory. This decision was taken with dissenting (Maria Lúcia Amaral) and even concurring opinions of judges (João Caupers) that argued that a reference for a preliminary ruling should have been made in order to solve doubts on the scope of the reasoning of the Court of Justice in Case C-333/13, Dano, ECLI:EU:C:2014:2358. In Case 283/81, Cilfit, ECLI:EU:C:1982:335, at 16, the Court of Justice introduced an exception to the duty to refer when the correct application of EU law is ‘so obvious as to leave no scope for any reasonable doubt’. The existence of doubts regarding the interpretation of EU law in concurring and dissenting opinions is enough to trigger the duty to refer of a national court ‘against whose decisions there is no judicial remedy under national law’ [Article 267 (3) TFUE]. This situation differs from the Case C-160/14, Ferreira da Silva e Brito, EU:C:2015:565, paras. 41-42, where the Court of Justice devalued the importance of lower national courts adopting contradictory decisions on EU Except where otherwise noted content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons 2.5 Italy License E -130