He graduated as a
licentiate in
law and
doctorate in judicial sciences from the
Faculty of Law of the
University of Coimbra. He was also a
professor at the
Portuguese Catholic University and several foreign universities. Still today, his doctrine is very influential in the Portuguese legal community, mainly in what comes to
civil law. After the
Carnation Revolution, on 25 April 1974, he helped in the foundation, jointly with
Francisco Sá Carneiro,
Francisco Pinto Balsemão,
Joaquim Magalhães Mota,
João Bosco Mota Amaral,
Alberto João Jardim,
António Barbosa de Melo and
António Marques Mendes, of the
Popular Democratic Party (PPD, today PSD). He was elected
Deputy to the
Constituent Assembly and to the
Assembly of the Republic (the name of the Assembly has its origins in a Mota Pinto's proposal) for PPD. Having distanced himself from
Sá Carneiro, they would reconcile (at the time of Sá Carneiro's death they both supported the same presidential candidate,
Soares Carneiro). He would again return to the party to serve as vice-president in 1983 and President in 1984 and 1985. He was also
Minister for Commerce and Tourism in the
first Constitutional Government of Portugal (1976–1977),
Prime Minister of the 4th Constitutional Government between 1978 and 1979 when he was appointed by then
President António Ramalho Eanes,
Vice-Prime Minister and Minister for Defense of the 9th Constitutional Government (the
Central-Bloc Government) from 1983 to 1985. He died suddenly in 1985, in
Coimbra, days before the Congress that gave the Presidency of the party to
Aníbal Cavaco Silva. ==Decorations==