Margao: After 57 years of liberation, the English translation of the Portuguese Civil Code 1867 has finally been translated and published on the Official Gazette last week. The Government had to conduct this exercise due to an Order dated 24-03-2017 passed by the High Court of Bombay at Goa in Public Interest Litigation (Suo Motu) No 1 of 2017, regarding Translation of the Portuguese Civil Code, 1867.
Since liberation, the Portuguese Civil Code had been translated by senior advocate M S Usgaonkar. However, since there was no official English version of the Code available to the common man and the public, many people believed that this void led to the injustice of many Goans. Marian Pinheiro had previously stated in the Herald that “certain forces have greatly benefitted from the judicial process in Goa by ensuring that the English translation of the Code is not made available to the public so that they could twist, turn and distort the meaning of certain Portuguese terms to benefit their case and judges being ignorant of Portuguese language would merely accept their version.”
The community of
advocates has welcomed the English translation of the Portuguese Civil Code. Speaking to Herald, Advocate Milred Mendonca welcomed the translation of the Portuguese Civil Code. “The State of Goa, without foolishly and any thought passed the Goa Succession and Special Notaries Act when there was a Central Code in place and when they had no sanction to repeal an Act that was sanctified by the Indian Parliament when it passed the Goa Daman and Diu Administration Act 1962. The High Court order along with its subsequent translation of the entire Portuguese Civil Code only confirms the obvious”, he said.
