Judges call for urgent regulation of procedural distribution law

The president of the union association of judges today urged the Minister of Justice to regulate the law on procedural distribution to avoid “situations of chicanery” in the courts and recalled promises to be fulfilled, especially in the administrative and fiscal areas.

In the closing speech, at the XII Congress of Portuguese Judges, Manuel Soares, president of the Association of Portuguese Judges (ASJP), questioned the Minister of Justice, Catarina Sarmento e Castro, about whether “is it normal, legitimate, acceptable” that a lawyer can interpose dozens of incidents of judge refusals, sometimes repeatedly in the same case, without the magistrates being able to do anything to counter it and allow the process and judgment to advance.

This is because the regulation of the procedural distribution law remains to be done – even though the minister has already appointed July as the deadline for sending the Government’s proposal to parliament – a delay that allows the defenses to continue to allege non-compliance with the law and violation of distribution rules to raise incidents and “numb justice” asking for the removal of the judge.

“Mrs. Minister, that law has to be regulated immediately, not only because what is there seems right to us, but to put an end to these situations of real procedural chicanery”, said Manuel Soares.

In the criminal sphere, he stated that there is even slower justice when the defendants are in the media, with processes that “have no end” or that “will hardly reach a final decision before the statute of limitations” and again insisted on a “legislative intervention” that puts an end to the abusive and illegitimate exercise of procedural rights, which allows the “discussion of the superfluous and anomalous incidents” raised to be analyzed in a separate process, so that the trial runs “unhindered” until the end.

“We cannot continue to look at this as if it were nothing, seeming to be complicit in an inefficiency that objectively benefits the impunity of powerful people to whom the rule of law has knocked on the door”, he criticized.

On administrative and fiscal justice, which the president of the ASJP has already pointed out as one of the areas in need of urgent intervention, Manuel Soares recalled the procedural delay in these courts, which “from promise to promise, from postponement to postponement, from a working group to the other, has no solution in sight”.

Manuel Soares asked for even more “control, transparency and integrity” for arbitration, criticizing the absence of the Public Prosecutor’s Office in cases in which the State is a party, in which the public interest is at stake and in which arbitral tribunals are a “private justice “.

“It is not right, it cannot be right, that the State is condemned by a secret arbitration court, without legality control by the Public Ministry, to pay a private company hundreds of millions of euros for breach of a contractual clause that the court of accounts” had already considered null, he said.

He also did not forget the judicial employees, who have been on strike for months, which paralyzed services, delayed processes and postponed thousands of steps, and who promise to continue until their salary and career demands are met by the Government.

“They are right. What they ask for is fair and reasonable. The approval of a new statute that reaches a consensus that puts an end to the serious disturbance caused in the functioning of the courts by a climate of generalized tension, discouragement and lack of motivation cannot be postponed any longer. of the professional body that supports the administration of justice and stoppages and strikes that postpone thousands of steps and introduce new factors of inefficiency”, he said.

“Madame Minister, I make this public request to you, please resolve this quickly”, demanded Manuel Soares, in a moment of the speech in which he was applauded by the congress room, where about 600 judges who participated in the event and in the presence of the Minister of Justice, Catarina Sarmento e Castro, and the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa.

He pointed out failures in preventing corruption within the system to the superior councils of the judiciary, failures in the recognition of these errors and in the reinforcement of prevention mechanisms that guarantee transparency and integrity in justice, noting that the ASJP presented proposals, namely to verify the suitability of judges, for reporting cases of corruption in the courts or for monitoring reporting obligations, among others.

A year away from the end of his mandate, Manuel Soares still did not want to make his farewell speech to the ASJP at this congress, even admitting that “in all probability” it was the last time he addressed an assembly of judges in associational functions, assuming as a personal plan from April 2024 “disappearing from the public space” for a renewal and generational transition in leadership of the association.