Maria José Nogueira Pinto

Maria José Pinto da Cunha de Avilez Nogueira Pinto (23 March 1952 – 6 July 2011) was a Portuguese lawyer and politician. She was a member of the Assembly of the Republic of Portugal, representing the CDS – People's Party and, later, the Social Democratic Party.

Early life Maria José Pinto da Cunha de Avilez Nogueira Pinto was born into an aristocratic family in the Portuguese capital of Lisbon on 23 March 1952. She married Jaime Nogueira Pinto in January 1972. They were both students at the Faculty of Law of the University of Lisbon but, after the overthrow of the Estado Novo regime in April 1974, she interrupted her studies to accompany her husband to the Portuguese colony of Angola, as he had volunteered to do military service there. As a consequence of the outbreak of the civil war in Angola, and before Portugal could withdraw all of its troops, the couple made their way to South Africa, where they were accommodated in a Red Cross refugee camp. They later travelled to Spain and from there to Brazil. When she finally returned to Lisbon, she completed her degree at the University of Coimbra.

Early career On graduation, Pinto became a researcher at the Rural Studies Office of the Catholic University of Portugal. In this capacity she worked on the publishing of the book O Direito da Terra (The Law of Land). Subsequently, still at the Catholic University, she collaborated in the production of a Legal Encyclopedia and a Portuguese-Brazilian Encyclopedia. She was then appointed as vice president of the Portuguese Cinema Institute.

In March 2007 Pinto entered into conflict with the CDS-PP when Paulo Portas returned to the leadership of the Party. She accused Portas of going against democratically elected bodies of the party. She also accused a CDS-PP deputy of physically assaulting her. In 2009, she was asked to join the list of the liberal-conservative Social Democratic Party (PSD) for the Assembly of the Republic. She was duly elected for the Lisbon constituency and was re-elected in 2011, shortly before her death.

Maria José Nogueira Pinto died on 6 July 2011, a victim of pancreatic cancer. She had three children, one boy and two girls. In 2014, the Lisbon City Council inaugurated a memorial to Pinto by the sculptor Rui Sanches. The Maria José Nogueira Pinto Social Responsibility Prize is awarded annually by the pharmaceutical company, Merck Sharp & Dohme Lda., to the person considered to have made the greatest contribution to "social responsibility" in Portugal.