author
João Maria Tello de Magalhães Collaço
A Portuguese legal scholar whose work explored how constitutional principles should limit legislation, he wrote with the close reasoning of a jurist and the curiosity of a historian.
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Ensaio sobre a inconstitucionalidade das leis no direito português
by João Maria Tello de Magalhães Collaço
About the author
João Maria Tello de Magalhães Collaço was a Portuguese jurist and writer best known today for Ensaio sobre a inconstitucionalidade das leis no direito português, a study first published in 1915. The book examines how Portuguese law should deal with statutes that conflict with the constitution, showing his strong interest in public law and constitutional limits on state power.
Available sources also connect him with academic life in both Coimbra and Lisbon. English- and Portuguese-language references about his daughter, the noted jurist Isabel de Magalhães Colaço, describe him as a senior professor of public law at the universities of Coimbra and Lisbon.
His name also appears on later scholarly and historical publications, including work related to the 1527 population survey of the Portuguese kingdom. Even from the limited surviving biographical material easily available online, he comes across as a serious legal thinker whose writing sits at the meeting point of constitutional theory, legal history, and public debate.