2014 has been an astonishing year for Portuguese justice. We have seen the detention of a former prime minister, the arrest of the country’s most powerful banker, the conviction of a former PSD MP, the removal from power of both the high and the mighty as police investigations sweep the country – but does any of it signify real change? Will the corrupt and the criminal truly be taken to task, or will the whole motley crew skip off merrily to a darkly-comic festive rendition of “Jingle Bracelets all the Way”?
The Resident takes a critical look at the year’s so-called investigative “success stories” and wonders where they will all end?
On the face of it, justice has had a triumphant year. If you can gloss over the fact that the much-heralded ‘redrawing of the judicial map’ caused the country’s legal portal to collapse – temporarily jettisoning 3.5 million cases into virtual fog – the sheer volume of high-level corruption “rumbled” by the authorities has been unprecedented.
For full report read this week’s BUMPER edition of the Algarve Resident newspaper, out this Thursday (December 18).
Justice or Jingle Bells?
