Portuguese judges union ASJP has warned of the “unsustainable situation” at Lisbon appeals court, blaming it squarely on the dysfunction of AIMA – the relatively new agency for Integration, Migrations and Asylum.
Rejecting any responsibility for the “tens of thousands of cases” originating from AIMA failures clogging up the courts, the union says the agency should be an “absolute priority” for reform.
Anyone who has any kind of litigation pending in the administrative courts will be aware of lengthy delays. ASJP stress much of these are down to the people who end up resorting to the courts because of AIMA’s inability to agenda simple appointments, or deal with “basic administrative acts”.
The resulting cases, in the union’s opinion, are ‘artificial’, in that they were unnecessary, the result simply of AIMA’s failures.
ASJP has already sent official letters to this effect to the deputy minister for State Reform, Gonçalo Matias, and minister for the presidency, António Leitão Amaro, requesting intervention in view of the “unsustainable situation at the Lisbon Administrative Court (TACL)”, where the bulk of AIMA’s backlog is centred.
In the letter to Gonçalo Matias, the union stresses that the direct impact of court overload “poses a real danger to the functioning of administrative justice, seriously threatening its responsiveness and citizens’ trust in institutions”.
In the letter to Leitão Amaro, ASJP warns of widespread delays in other cases of “enormous social and economic relevance”, relating to areas such as urban planning, the environment, public procurement – as well as to the overall “perception of inefficiency of (Portuguese) justice”.
“It is imperative that the government, through the ministry you head, adopt concrete and immediate measures to remedy the failures of AIMA and restore normal administrative functioning, otherwise we will continue to witness the deterioration of the administrative jurisdiction’s response capacity,” the union adds.
“Our duty is to judge with independence, impartiality and rigour — not to replace administrative bodies that are incapable of fulfilling their mission. It is time to state clearly that the dignity of the judicial function is not negotiable and cannot be swayed by superficial perceptions,” a note to the union’s members concludes.
Source material: LUSA
