On September 1st last year, Citius was launched by Justice Minister Paula Teixeira da Cruz (pictured) as part of the reorganisation of Portugal’s court system.
Citius aimed to link courts and case documents in a modern, cost-saving computerised network to speed up cases and eradicate the huge backlog that had caused Portugal to perform poorly in comparison to the justice systems of other EC countries.
Citius famously crashed on takeoff and the promising new ‘judicial map’ was plunged into a darkness from which it seems not to have recovered.
The Ministry of Justice is now flying blind as it lacks basic statistical data on the progress of court cases in the system and therefore is unable to manage the service or report with accuracy on how the new 'judicial map' is going.
Although functional, Citius is unable to produce management data for the body responsible for information and statistics relating to the justice system.
Once Citius limped into action late last summer, data was only available to 2013 which showed 1.5 million cases were still pending in the lower courts. What the Ministry does not know is what has happened to these cases.
"The data is very important for the Ministry of Justice in terms of monitoring and evaluating the justice system and in particular the judicial reforms, as well as monitoring the courts themselves," said the head of Directorate-General for Justice Policy, Susana Antas Videira.
About the lost data, the official says "they are progressing information retrieval and data restoration to the statistics body from the computing platform to support the activity of the courts."
This nonsense was answered by an unimpressed president of the Trade Union Association of Portuguese Judges, José Maria Costeira, who said that "it is unacceptable that the Minister of Justice insist that everything is fine, it is like sailing a ship while wearing a blindfold." "It's very disturbing to know nothing. The Citius system is unreliable and can crash at any time."
The Order of Lawyers accused the Justice Minister Paula Teixeira da Cruz of a whitewash over the failure of Citius and the subsequent loss of data," claiming that the ministry does not want the statistics to be produced as it will show the new court system for what it really is.
The minister handled the launch of Citius badly, blaming others and missing several re-launch deadlines when the system failed to perform as required.
One way that the struggling minister has devised to make the figures look better is to magic away around 80,000 debt cases where the debtor has no assets, salary or in many cases, breath.
Pressing the 'delete' button on pre-2003 cases that had not been resolved shows two things: a welcome degree of common sense, and a crystal clear example of how decrepit the legal system is that allows this number of cases to build up.
This case cleansing scheme is good news for those owing money, around 300,000 people have quietly benefitted since 2011 in a country where the coercive tax collection system is the new mantra.
In fact citizens are being excused their debts in their hundreds of thousands while others are being stripped of their few remaining assets and dignity.
A key report on Portugal's justice system written by UN Special Rapporteur Gabriela Knaul should have been delivered to the Human Rights Council this June - it has yet to be published.
Court staff union leaders continue to complain that there are too few trained personnel to administer the new Citius case management system and that the Justice Minister failed in her role last summer.
Other criticism includes allegations that cases purposefully are delayed until out of time, witnesses are called on the wrong days and many claimants are put off seeking legal redress due to cost and delay.
The adage seems still to ring true that "to take a case to court in Portugal, you need to be under 30 and in good health."
Whether the Knaul report uncoveres the truth behind the carefully constructed veneer remains to be seen but the lack of statistics, if purposefully delayed, can be added to a long list of problems.
