Maria da Assunção Esteves

Who is Maria da Assunção Esteves?

Maria da Assunção Andrade Esteves is a Portuguese politician and was a Member of the European Parliament for the Social Democratic Party–People's Party coalition; part of the European People's Party–European Democrats group.

Assunção Esteves holds both a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in law from the Faculty of Law of the University of Lisbon, where she was an assistant between 1989 and 1999. During that time, she was also a counseling judge at the Portuguese Constitutional Court from 1989 to 1998.

On 21 June 2011 she became the first female President of the Assembly of the Republic. Being unable to receive both her salary of €5,219.15 as President of the Assembly of the Republic and her retirement pension of €7,255, which she started receiving at the age of 42, for having been a judge of the Portuguese Constitutional Court, she choose to keep her retirement pension. Additionally, she receives €2,133 for work expenses.