PALOP decolonisation retention / descent (DL 308-A/75)

PT-HIS-02 addresses the nationality consequences of the 1975 decolonisation of Portugal's former African overseas territories — the territories now grouped as the PALOP (Países Africanos de Língua Oficial Portuguesa): Angola, Moçambique, Cabo Verde, Guiné-Bissau and São Tomé e Príncipe. The route is anchored in Decreto-Lei n.º 308-A/75, de 24 de junho (the diploma that settled who kept and who lost Portuguese nationality when independence was conferred on those territories in 1975), together with the ordinary jus-sanguinis chain of Art 1 of Lei n.º 37/81 through which today's descendants of the retention cohort transmit and claim Portuguese nationality.

The route has two analytically distinct layers that must not be collapsed:

1. The 1975 retention/loss settlement (the W1 layer). At independence the general rule was that residents of the territories lost Portuguese nationality ex lege, subject to enumerated retention exceptions. This is a historical, fixed-date allocation rule. It is not a present-day application channel; it defines who was Portuguese (and who ceased to be Portuguese) on the relevant independence dates.

2. The present-day descent layer (the W7 layer). Persons who retained Portuguese nationality under DL 308-A/75 are Portuguese nationals, and their children and grandchildren claim today through the ordinary Art 1 attribution (jus sanguinis) provisions of Lei 37/81 — principally Art 1(1)(c) (child of a Portuguese national born abroad) and, where applicable, Art 1(1)(d) (grandchild of an original Portuguese national). This is the live, exercisable pathway in 2026.

A critical framing point for this route — and a recurring fabrication trap — is that the PALOP states are CPLP member states, but the CPLP 7-year preferential naturalisation track (Art 6 n.1 b) Lei 37/81) is a wholly SEPARATE route (modelled as PT-NAT-01), not part of PT-HIS-02. PT-HIS-02 concerns retained/transmitted original nationality (attribution); the CPLP track concerns acquired nationality (naturalisation) after residence. A descendant of a 1975 PALOP-connected Portuguese national who qualifies under the Art 1 chain receives originária nationality with no residence requirement; a PALOP national with no qualifying Portuguese ascendant must instead naturalise under the 7-year CPLP track. The two must never be merged.

LO 1/2026 introduced no PALOP-specific decolonisation restriction. The 2026 reform tightened naturalisation thresholds (7y/10y), revoked the Sephardic route, restructured jus soli and adoption, and added the bisneto track — but it did not alter the DL 308-A/75 retention settlement or the historical retention/declaration rights. The general descent chain through which PALOP-connected descendants claim today continues unchanged, save that any naturalisation-based pathway (the CPLP 7-year track for non-descendant PALOP nationals) now reflects the 2026 thresholds.

Layer 1 — the 1975 retention settlement (DL 308-A/75). At the independence of each former African territory, the general rule was that residents lost Portuguese nationality by operation of law. Portuguese nationality was retained by persons falling within enumerated exceptions (PT-ASSERT-HIS-010; corroborated S-C20/S-C21/S-C22):

• persons born in metropolitan Portugal (the European territory / "metrópole");
• persons born in a territory still under Portuguese administration at the relevant time;
• persons born overseas but legally resident in mainland Portugal for at least 5 years before 25 April 1974 (the Revolução dos Cravos reference date used in the decolonisation settlement).

A person within any retention exception remained Portuguese without interruption; a person outside all exceptions lost Portuguese nationality on the territory's independence and (absent a separate retention/declaration right) became a national of the new State.

Layer 2 — descent today (Art 1 Lei 37/81). The present-day claimant is typically not the 1975-cohort person but their child or grandchild. Eligibility turns on establishing an unbroken jus-sanguinis chain to a retained Portuguese ascendant:

• Child of a retained Portuguese national — Art 1(1)(c): the child (born abroad, e.g. in Angola/Mozambique post-independence) is filho de português and claims originária nationality by civil-registry registration or declaration. No residence requirement; assessed on documentary proof of the parent's Portuguese nationality and the parent-child link.
• Grandchild of a retained original Portuguese national — Art 1(1)(d) / Art 1(3): where the chain skips a generation (the parent did not register), the grandchild may claim originária attribution, but under LO 1/2026 must now satisfy the full Art 6(1)(c)-(h) integration battery (language + culture/history/symbols, civic knowledge, solemn democratic-values declaration, criminal/security/UN-EU bars). See PT-DSC-02 for the full grandchild analysis.

The crucial negative criterion (FATAL guard). A PALOP national who has no qualifying Portuguese ascendant does NOT come within PT-HIS-02 at all. Their pathway, if any, is naturalisation under the CPLP 7-year track (Art 6 n.1 b), PT-NAT-01), which requires legal residence in Portugal and the full naturalisation conditions — it is acquired, not original, nationality, and it does not flow from the decolonisation settlement. Being a citizen of a PALOP/CPLP state confers no automatic or accelerated Portuguese nationality.

For the descent claim (the live pathway), the applicant must evidence:

1. The ascendant's retained Portuguese nationality — documentary proof that the relevant parent/grandparent fell within a DL 308-A/75 retention exception (or otherwise held and did not lose Portuguese nationality), e.g. metropolitan birth certificate, Portuguese civil-registry records, prior Portuguese identity/registration documents, or assento de nascimento in a Portuguese conservatória.

2. For Art 1(1)(c) — registration of the birth in the Portuguese civil registry OR a declaration of the wish to be Portuguese. No residence, language, or integration test (attribution, not naturalisation).

3. For Art 1(1)(d) grandchild claims — additionally, the post-LO 1/2026 Art 6(1)(c)-(h) battery (language A2 CIPLE + culture/history/symbols, civic knowledge, solemn declaration, no conviction to effective imprisonment >3 years for enumerated crimes [rebuttable presumption, Art 6 n.14], no security threat, no UN/EU restrictive measures). The exact test format is pending the Regulamento update.

No DL 308-A/75 "application" exists today as a free-standing route. The retention settlement is a fixed historical allocation; the operational act in 2026 is the Art 1 attribution claim filed with the IRN/CRC, not a "DL 308-A/75 application."

1. Filing. The descent claim is filed with the IRN — Instituto dos Registos e do Notariado, specifically the Conservatória dos Registos Centrais (CRC) in Lisbon, which maintains the single national nationality registry (RNP). Diaspora applicants in PALOP states typically file through Portuguese consular posts, which transmit to the CRC.
2. Assessment. For Art 1(1)(c) the CRC verifies the ascendant's Portuguese nationality and the lineal link; attribution is declared, with effects ex tunc from birth (Art 11). For Art 1(1)(d) the integration conditions (Art 6(1)(c)-(h)) are additionally assessed.
3. Opposition (oposição). Attribution claims under Art 1 are not acquisition-by-will under Art 3/5 and are not generally subject to the Ministério Público opposition regime of Art 9-10 (which targets marriage/união/adoption acquisition); the control on attribution is documentary verification, not oposição.
4. Residence administration (where relevant). For the separate CPLP naturalisation track, AIMA (Agência para a Integração, Migrações e Asilo, I.P.) administers residence; this is not part of the PT-HIS-02 descent claim.
5. Appeals. Refusals are challenged in the administrative courts, with final appeal to the Supremo Tribunal Administrativo (STA) — not the civil courts / STJ (the post-LO 2/2006 position; confirmed by PT-ASSERT-XCT-010 and STA Proc. 0219/10.6BEPRT). The STA has held that the administration cannot impose unlegislated conditions (e.g. an "original-only" gloss) on the statutory criteria (CRP Art 164 f) reserva).

Descent chain — Lei 37/81 Art 1 (current consolidated text via LO 1/2026). Persons in the retention cohort are Portuguese nationals; their descendants claim through:

• Art 1(1)(a) — child born in Portuguese territory of a Portuguese parent (automatic, originária);
• Art 1(1)(c) — child born abroad of a Portuguese parent, by registration in the Portuguese civil registry OR declaration of the wish to be Portuguese (the principal diaspora transmission provision; no residence requirement; effects ex tunc from birth under Art 11);
• Art 1(1)(d) — grandchild born abroad of a 2nd-degree direct-line ascendant of original Portuguese nationality, by declaration plus effective community links, now requiring the full Art 6(1)(c)-(h) battery under the new Art 1(3) (LO 1/2026 tightening — see PT-DSC-02).

Constitutional / competence anchor. Nationality is the exclusive, non-delegable competence of the Assembleia da República (CRP Art 164 f) reserva absoluta), exercisable only by organic law (Art 166 n.2). The executive may implement but not supplement the organic law (STA Proc. 0219/10.6BEPRT, 14-02-2019): the administration cannot read unlegislated conditions into the nationality rules. Appeals run to the administrative courts / Supremo Tribunal Administrativo since LO 2/2006 (NOT civil courts / STJ). The Azores and Madeira confer no separate nationality (CRP Art 225 n.3). There is one national registry — the RNP via the Conservatória dos Registos Centrais (CRC).