A Judge at the Court of Appeal in Porto, heavily criticised for his demeaning verbal attacks on women, has been transferred to a civil section of the court so he won’t have to decide on domestic violence cases.
This is just as well as a recent appeal catapulted the judge into the headline after he cited the Bible and the Portuguese Penal Code of 1886 which allows for little more than a symbolic penalty even if a husband kills his adulterous wife.
Neto de Moura’s judgment in October 2017 warned that "there are societies in which the adulterous woman is stoned to death" and that adultery of the woman is "a very serious attack on the honour and dignity of the man," and that “in the Bible, we can read that an adulterous woman should be punished with death.”
Hence, the news that the judge will be nowhere cases involving domestic violence will be welcomed by all.
The president of the superior court, Nuno Ataíde das Neves, decided to move the judge sideways, which he accepted under the reason of ‘convenience of service.’
Neto de Moura now is busy with his own lawyer as he intends to sue everyone that made fun of him or called him a judicial dinosaur, which clearly he is, claiming his ‘professional honour’ has been tainted. It helps that the judge, due to his position, does not have the inconvenience of having to pay legal costs.
The comedian Ricardo Araújo Pereira and Bruno Nogueira, the Left Bloc MP, Mariana Mortágua, and commentators Joana Amaral Dias and Manuel Rodrigues are the primary targets of this ill fated legal move.