The Portuguese Civil Service has a “schizophrenic dimension” that is a consequence of the “traumatic facts” of its “difficult childhood”, common to all the countries which are part of the “family” of the French administrative Law model, adopted in the period of the liberal State (of the 18th. and the 19th centuries). The current means to enter the Civil Service is through a unified contract for all public employees, which creates a private/public employment relationship. This contractual regime mixes private labour rights and duties with public regulations (including functional duties, like the duty to obey), as well as introduces a duality of jurisdictions. We consider two new phenomena: the increase in the number of senior public administration officials who become political appointees, and the creation of a new kind of "political functionaries" (advisors, assistants), based exclusively on the "public trust" of the members of the Government. These phenomena are responsible for another “schizophrenic situation” relative to the Public Administration, that does not really work like the French way nor the American way.