Minister of Foreign Affairs dismisses senior technician effective October 23

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has applied the disciplinary sanction of dismissal to the senior technician Maria Lucília de Almeida Correia Santos, from the ministry’s personnel roster. The decision is contained in Order No. 13948/2026, published in the Diário da República, 2nd series, no. 221, of November 13, 2026, in the Foreign Affairs — General Secretariat section, with effects retroactive to October 23, 2026.

The sanction was determined by an order from the Minister of State and Foreign Affairs dated October 19, 2026, that is, four days before the date it took effect. The published extract is limited to identifying the worker, the category, and the employment link, without describing the imputed facts, the original disciplinary process, or the concrete justification for the measure.

Invoked legal framework

The order is based on four provisions of the General Law of Labor in Public Functions, approved by Decree-Law No. 35/2014, of June 20, as currently worded:

• subparagraph d) of paragraph 1 of article 180, which includes dismissal in the scale of disciplinary penalties;
• paragraph 5 of article 181, regarding the determination of the applicable sanction;
• paragraph 4 of article 182, on the effects of the penalty;
• article 223, which frames the matter within the regime of the employment contract in public functions.

Dismissal is the most severe penalty provided for in the LGTFP, applicable only to infractions of particular gravity, and its execution depends on a decision by the competent entity with disciplinary power.

Employment link and authorship of the act

The affected worker performed duties under an indefinite-term employment contract in public functions, a condition expressly recorded in the text of the order. The decision is signed by the director of the ministry’s General Administration Department, Maria da Luz Andrade, on November 9, 2026, six days before the publication in the Diário da República.

The authority to apply the penalty belongs to the Minister of State and Foreign Affairs, Paulo Artur dos Santos de Castro de Campos Rangel, whose order of October 19 is the direct basis for the measure now made public. The act is published as an extract, the usual format for individual personnel decisions in the 2nd series of the official bulletin.

Other personnel decisions in the same edition

The same issue of the Diário da República gathers, in the Foreign Affairs area, a set of orders regarding individual situations of ministry workers:

• Order no. 13947/2026: termination of the appointment, in a substitution capacity, of Celina dos Anjos Cruz to the position of head of the Cultural Support and Associativism Division of the Emigration Services Directorate, effective October 1, 2026;
• Order no. 13949/2026: renewal, for one year, of the posting of Mieke Katrien Vandewalle to the Permanent Representation of Portugal to the European Union, in Brussels, effective January 8, 2027;
• Order no. 13950/2026: unpaid leave for Rui Miguel Pires da Costa, chief superintendent of the Public Security Police, to perform duties at FRONTEX between November 1, 2026, and October 31, 2031.

The case of Order no. 13948/2026 differs from the others as it is the only one that imposes an expulsive penalty, rather than a change in posting, appointment, or leave.

Impact

The dismissal of a senior technician with an open-ended contract in the ministry responsible for Portuguese foreign policy is an exceptional decision, both due to the severity of the penalty and the fact that it involves qualified permanent staff. The lack of details regarding the facts in the published extract means that the full justification for the sanction will only be known if the disciplinary process is disclosed or judicially challenged, making this order a case to monitor regarding discipline in Public Administration.

Source: Diário da República, 2nd series, no. 221, of November 13, 2026, Foreign Affairs — General Secretariat (official reference: Order no. 13948/2026).