Compulsory Arbitration and Constitution

BOOKS AND ACADEMIC ARTICLES 2015 in Estudos em Memória do Conselheiro Artur Maurício, Coimbra Editora, pp. 1301-1330

In this article on compulsory arbitration and Constitution, presented at the II Conference on International Arbitration in Coimbra, Rui Medeiros discusses if the Portuguese Constitution admits courts for compulsory arbitration, and if so, to what extent. The issue is analysed in relation to recent cases in Portuguese law: the compulsory arbitration on reference drugs and generic drugs imposed by Law n. 62/2011, of December 12, and the Court of Arbitration for Sports, established by Law n. 74/2013, of September 6. The paper also takes the opportunity to discuss the measure to which, in the field of professional sports, the existence of a transnational lex sportiva justifies, in a global context, the rejection of a “statist answer” with its “state dirigisme”, and thereby criticises the solution adopted by Decision n. 230/2013 of the Portuguese Constitutional Court.