GRECO, the council of Europe’s anti-corruption agency, has delivered a broadside to Portugal just as yet another case of alleged institutional corruption hogs the headlines.
In a report released this week, GRECO stresses that Portugal has “a very low level of compliance” with recommendations on fighting corruption among MPs, judges and prosecutors.
Portugal has only “satisfactorily implemented” one of the 15 recommendations that came out of an agency evaluation three years ago, says the report.
“Three have been partly implemented” but 11 have been left hanging – a situation GRECO qualifies as “globally unsatisfactory” as it calls on the country to “step up its efforts” to clamp down on what is often seen here as the ‘way things work’.
GRECO concedes Portugal has launched “an ambitious reform aimed at bolstering integrity, enhancing accountability and increasing transparency of a wide range of public office holders” but it points out that “it remains to be seen whether and how the overarching principles and standards of conduct for MPs are developed”.
“As far as judges are concerned”, says the agency’s press statement, “GRECO is disappointed by the non-fulfillment of recommendations that it deems crucial for fostering greater independence of the judiciary and of judges and enhancing public trust in this branch”.
The watchdog has given Portugal until December “to report back on the implementation of the outstanding recommendations” – by which time there may be even more ‘shocking cases of institutional corruption’ under Public Ministry investigation.
In a story being widely repeated over the United States media, Associated Press remarks: “In recent years, a former Portuguese prime minister, the government minister overseeing the police, the head of the country’s largest private bank and two senior magistrates, among other officials, have been arrested on suspicion of corruption”.
And today the implications of the latest ‘e-toupeira’ investigation centering on alleged skullduggery involving judicial employees, among others, is being splashed across the nation’s television screens (click here). Indeed, since we wrote our story, new names have joined the list of ‘arguidos’.
natasha.donn@algarveresident.com
