The focus in Portugal’s justice system have been on the poor performance of the CITIUS computer programme which was meant to bit chunks from the backlog of cases.
Launched a year ago, and re-launched six weeks later after ‘teething troubles’ the new system seems to work in part but the caseload piling up at the country’s courts is more to do with a lack of people than the system, especially as many current cases have been filed under pending and others simply have disappeared.
The minister has the full support of the prime minster yet Paula Teixeira da Cruz’s record of management failures and habit of shifting the blame has exposed her lack of project implementation skills.
The next problem to come to light it the courts themselves. Many were closed down and resources reallocated to larger, more centralised regional location causing travel problems for many without the money to travel by taxis and for those expected to appear in court but lacking public transport links.
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.
In June 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, much the same as the old one.
One way that the struggling minister has come up with to make the figures look better is to delete around 80,000 debt cases where the debtor has no assets or salary.
The next problem that simply has not been addresses is the court buildings, many of which need emergency repairs before the autumn rains come.
It has become intolerable for many judges and court staff to run a justice system when water is dripping into the courtroom and court offices through leaking roofs.
Some 31 court buildings have been listed where rain is likely to stop play, according to the Institute for Financial Management and the Structure of Justice (IGFEJ) which has decided to proceed with emergency repairs, starting in September.
In total there are 148 courts in the country in need of remedial work but the first 31 alone will cost €3 million to patch up.
Why this has not been attended to during the dry summer months remains to be explained but if the judicial system is to become ‘modern and effective’ as the minister wishes it to be, the bare minimum requirement is to have a roof that does not allow water to drip into the courtroom every time it rains.
The report on Portugal's justice system, written by UN Special Rapporteur Gabriela Knaul, may already have been delivered to the Human Rights Council by the June deadline but it has not yet been released.
This report is eagerly awaited, mostly by those who want a change of justice minister, but the October general election means that the government, if it is able, will sit on the report until it sees who is in power come October 5th.
Portugal’s Left Bloc says that the government’s judicial reform programme has resulted in chaos.
"There is no way that the justice system meets the needs of a modern and democratic society," said Catarina Martins who criticised the reform of the ‘judicial map’ started a year ago, saying that the measures had brought "chaos to the courts."
The new judicial map launched last September divided the country into 23 regions based on 18 district capitals and installed a new computerised management system to streamline the distribution and allocation of cases and staff.
"We have the darkest years of justice in Portugal. Staff numbers were cut by more than a 1,000, all investment was cut. There is no way that the justice system meets the needs of a modern and democratic society."
Catarina Martins said that, given these conditions and the strike that took place over the CITIUS computer system, many cases have had a further delay of six months.
