The Ministry of Justice is aiming to hire 400 additional staff for Portugal’s struggling courts if its proposal as part of the 2017 State Budget is accepted by parliament.
The Union of Judicial Employees says that "it is better than nothing", while warning that this is not enough to end the staffing problems the court system is experiencing.
The Justice Minister, Francisca Van Dunem, managed to get the staffing request included in the draft state budget presented today in Parliament.
According to the preliminary version of the proposal, the government plans to hire 400 employees and at the same time intends to promote an equal number of staff who currently are at the bottom of the career category.
These 400 staff members will be promoted and the places they leave vacant will be filled by new employees. The lack of trained staff has been one of the biggest problems in the court system, a fact noted by the unions, the Attorney General's Office and the Supreme Judicial Council.
"It's good news," admits Fernando Jorge, president of the Judicial Officers Union. "It's better than nothing. But it is not the ideal measure. We were counting on hiring 600 to 800 new employees. The working number of court employees should be 7,500 and currently there only are about 6,300 employees in post."
The budget also contains a proposal to strengthening the judicial service by bringing judges out of retirement in an attempt to handle the backlog of cases which currently forces many to wait years before their cases are listed.
Comments
Every Portuguese lawyer trains and then practices well aware of the 10 year deadline. Totally aware of its implications and knowing well that it is alien in countries like the UK. That far from seeing it as a failing of Portuguese Justice it becomes a useful tactic - a very lucrative earner if the client is a well heeled foreigner that both sides can pilfer off over the years,
The 'problem' is at the very start. The first hearing will always go in favour of the 'local'. But the judges summary will leave sufficient vagueness for an appeal. Missing, doctored or incorrectly translated documents (or foreign witnesses) is a classic reason. The 'more senior' lawyer will insist on a sizeable retainer for himself and donations to keep witnesses on board. A Brit known to us racked up an early stage 20,000 euro lawyer bill in just 6 months and his case still finished out of time! These payments will stretch into years as often funding the opposition lawyer (and his witnesses?) and, as we so often read in the papers, the Justice officials themselves ! Then - original witnesses cannot be found for re-hearings or have changed their story. No longer sure.
So the pantomime of 'Portuguese Justice' continues into the next Silly Season ...