FINANCIAL SUPERVISION OF MUTUALIST ASSOCIATIONS AND FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION

Abstract

This text concerns the recent financial supervision regime for mutual associations. The aim of this paper is not to elaborate any theoretical discourse, in terms of the general theory of public regulation and, in particular, in the general theory of financial regulation, about the financial supervision of social economy organizations, in which also are included mutualist associations, but more modestly to analyze the legal-constitutional legitimacy of (legally) qualified as “authentic interpretation” of the provisions of paragraph f) of n.º. 5 of article 6 of Decree-Law n.º 59/2018 of 2 August on the power granted to the Insurance and Pension Funds Supervisory Authority (ASF) to “analyze the governance system” of mutual associations during the term of the “12-year transitional regime”, provided for in that article 6, applicable to “existing mutual associations”, pursuant to the wording of article 2 of Decree-Law n.º 37/2019 of 15 March, as well as on the legal regime of administrative acts and private acts, when practiced under this “interpretative” rule. That is, the object of the article focuses on the analysis of the regime of Decree-Law No. 58/2018, of 2/8, as interpreted by Decree-Law n.º 37/2019, of 15/3, confronting this analysis with the methodical juridical-constitutional presupposed by the irreducible dimension of the component or radiant freedoms of freedom of association.