Measures include seizing assets of corruption ‘even before court convictions’
The anti-corruption agenda that the government took to the Council of Ministers today – and has since approved – includes a sweeping array of new measures designed to ‘clean up’ the image of dirty business that has characterised the ‘status quo’ in so much in Portugal for longer than anyone cares to remember.
Reports are strongly featuring the “new mechanism for the extended loss of assets” in some cases without conviction, measures to protect whistleblowers and the extension of reward mechanisms.
But there is quite a lot more in between, including the regulation of lobbying, the reinforcement of public consultation (so often seen as a cosmetic exercise that politicians/ State entities don’t even seriously consider) and the scrutiny of public appointments.
Compared to the government’s programme, the document no longer provides for the criminalisation of illicit enrichment – which has already been stopped by the Constitutional Court, explains Lusa.
According to the government’s summary of the measures, the agenda is based on three axes – prevention, repression and education.
“The executive intends to deepen ‘instruments that lead to the loss of the advantages obtained by committing a crime’, in line with EU legislation, “ensuring that the loss can be declared in relation to assets identified in kind, on the one hand, and that under certain conditions (corruption, money laundering and fraud) the requirement of a conviction for a crime can be waived”, says the State news agency.
The executive also intends to “regulate the procedural framework of asset forfeiture mechanisms”, namely “promote the appropriate regulation of all procedural mechanisms that relate to the reality of cryptocurrencies“, and boost asset recovery and asset management offices, admitting that it will evaluate their effectiveness and the need to review the operating model.
In the area of criminal investigation, the government wants to “update the legal framework for the means of obtaining evidence, particularly in a digital environment”.
The anti-corruption agenda aims to extend the protection regime for whistleblowers, “particularly in relation to abusive or manifestly unfounded legal proceedings, even if there is no employment relationship or link”.
(Under current legislation, only those who “report or publicly disclose an offence on the basis of information obtained in the course of their professional activity – regardless of the nature of this activity and the sector in which it is carried out” – are considered whistleblowers.)
The agenda admits a “possible extension” of the mechanisms for rewarding whistleblowers, “namely extending the material scope (which offences are covered) and the timeframe (up to which point in the process you can collaborate)”, but emphasises that there will have to be “a prior assessment of the respective results”.
In order to speed up proceedings, the document proposes “greater filtering of complaints”, so that the Public Prosecutor’s Office can “only receive complaints relating to criminal offences that have already been duly investigated”.
Still within the scope of criminal proceedings, the executive admits to “rethinking the scope and function of the procedural phase of investigation, – namely in terms of the production of evidence and the control of the facts” – and to strengthen judges’ powers to conduct and manage the proceedings.
Says Lusa, the government also wants to revise the Code of Criminal Procedure, “namely in terms of appeals, identifying useless and redundant procedural practices”, allowing, for example, appeals to be submitted only at the time of “the decision that ended the case”, and to consider “a revision of the model of access to the Constitutional Court”.
The document reveals a commitment to computerising the processing of cases, the handling of evidence and access to information. It states that the National Anti-Corruption Strategy 2025-2028 will be designed on the basis of an evaluation of the current one, “assessing the degree of implementation of measures set out therein, evaluating the effectiveness of measures already implemented and identifying those not yet implemented”.
Correio da Manhã tabloid led on this story today, saying the fight against corruption is one of the priorities of Luís Montenegro’s minority government.
Before drawing up the agenda Justice minister Rita Júdice heard all the parliamentary groups, as well as public entities.
The intention is for measures to come into effect immediately, ahead of the development, throughout AD’s legislature, of a new National Anti-Corruption strategy – but this can only happen after parliamentary approval of the necessary legal niceties (something that may take time and energy given opposition parties’ reservations).
There is also provision to ensure that the decisions of “all courts, including first instance courts” should be made public “as a way of contributing to the transparency of the judicial system, to public information on the functioning of justice and to the certainty and harmonisation of the application of the law”.
SIC Notícias has also referred to “urgent measures for the administrative and tax area to “alleviate the excessive length of proceedings and the high number of pending cases”.
Sources: LUSA/ Correio da Manhã/ SIC Notícias
