Gabriela Knaul, UN special rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers has ended her visit to Portugal, where she found the justice system "slow, expensive and difficult to comprehend."
In June, Knaul will present her report on the Portuguese justice system to the Human Rights Council in Geneva but her initial findings relayed to journalists today will make depressing reading for the Justice Minister and those who seek justice in Portugal's court system.
Before submitting her full report the UN Special Rapporteur announced her initial findings to journalists today and showed that it was business as usual in the two tier system and despite the computerisation of the courts system last summer, the poor are marginalised and the courts are underfunded.
Justice in Portugal is independent of political power, considered Knaul, but that its independence would be strengthened through the financial and administrative autonomy of the courts and prosecutors.
Gabriela Knaul was judge in Brazil before being appointed in 2009 to independent rapporteur of the UN Human Rights Council.
The jurist who, in the capacity of information gatherer has visited several countries, says that she was aware that her visit to Portugal was at a "particularly complex time" and that in recent years the country has faced "a severe economic crisis."
For Knaul, the course of justice must not be limited by budgetary issues and that access to justice must be guaranteed in the same way for the entire population - which simply is not happening in Portugal.
Knaul did not elaborate on the most publicised cases that currently are on the agenda for Portuguese justice and she did not recognise particularly the existence of one justice system for the rich and another for the poor. However, she was concerned about access to justice for all citizens.
"In a growing background of poverty, increases in legal costs are a very serious concern," said Knaul, adding that "significant portions of the population" have no access to justice.
In Lisbon, Oporto and Coimbra, Knaul met with leading justice figures including the ministers of Justice and Home Affairs, the presidents of the Supreme Court and the Supreme Administrative Court, the Attorney General's Office, judicial magistrates and prosecutors, the Ombudsman, lawyers and representatives of civil society.
The judge noted that legal aid exists in Portugal, but also that many who need it are not receiving it because of the "stringent criteria" for obtaining legal aid, so she advocated as "fundamental" a review of the methods for granting legal aid.
"Applications for legal aid have to go through three entities - the Social Security Institute, the Bar Association and the Ministry of Justice - which greatly complicates the process for people who need it to access justice.
"It can take up to a year for a person to get a lawyer," Knaul noted.
As for the independence of the judiciary, "There is an independent justice system but you need to have your financial and administrative autonomy reinforced," said Knaul.
This element "is crucial to the proper functioning of justice," she said. "The concentration of management functions in the Ministry of Justice seems to limit the accountability of judges and prosecutors for the efficient implementation of their activities."
Knaul also considered that Portuguese legislation provides guarantees of independence but the justice system needs continuous monitoring as "threats or circumstances" may arise which limit the independence of judges and prosecutors.
Gabriela Knaul made it clear that justice in Portugal is "slow, expensive and difficult to understand."
"What worries me most about justice in Portugal is the budget issue," she added. The judicial system "can not be on its knees, cap in hand, waiting for funding in order to function."
The judge’s findings included the fact that "the lower courts are still very short of staff and are extremely underfunded. We all know that in Portugal you have courts operating from Portakabins. All of this contributes to the slow pace of justice and can compromise the efficiency of its operation.
The collapse of the Citius courts computer system in September 2014 had nothing to do with the system itself but with the management of the process, said Knaul who regrets the rush to implement the system.
"The system did not support the migration of data in the way it was done," adding that "the system had obvious problems and was not able completely to change the operation so rapidly."
The judge asked how will it be possible to catch up on everything that happened in the two missing months when Citius failed and the courts ground to a halt.
“What about all the data that has not been entered into the system?" she asked, before concluding that the failure of Citius raises a question of the very credibility of the new system which has “affected the rights of many people."
The first comments from the Ministry of Justice this evening responding to Knaul’s criticism were that only three courts are operating from Portakabins and that the law already gives the new judicial districts their own budgets.
