Portugal’s justice system, notoriously slow and driven by interests, is beginning the long road towards structural reform. The Minister of Justice, Paula Teixeira da Cruz, explained how at the Portuguese-American Chamber of Commerce last week.
by CHRIS GRAEME
chris.graeme@theresidentgroup.com
All those living and working in Portugal today, including foreign or local business people, have the fair idea that Portugal’s justice system simply doesn’t work.
Investors are frightened to locate their businesses in the country because they feel the justice laws, like the labour laws, are too inflexible and, in cases of litigation, they may have to wait years for any kind of compensation or successful outcome to a legal or arbitrational decision.
Now, for the first time, a woman at the helm of the Portuguese Justice Ministry, Paula Texeira da Cruz, really means business and wants to reform the entire system from top to bottom, making it fairer, faster, less complicated and more transparent.
She’s up against tough opposition from the men and the entrenched lobbies, but she says she’s prepared to put up a tough fight in the name of justice.
The minister began by stating that never before had the stakes and demands placed before a government been so high while the conditions too had never been so adverse.
In the difficult times Portugal was going through there was “creativity, confidence and great determination” to do more with less, and make a lot of changes, some urgent, which needed to be done with and in spite of rationalisation and human resource constraints.
“I took on this position because I believed it was possible to reform Justice with a programme based on various areas of intervention,” she says.
Paula Teixeira da Cruz said that economic and business confidence presupposed an effective judicial system which in turn depended on the independence of its judges and the capacity of the courts to resolve legal cases fairly and within a short length of time.
Long-drawn-out cases that were overcomplicated and bogged down by complex laws did nothing to help the justice system or serve good justice.
The Government is starting with the reform of the Civil Code which had changed little in terms of effectiveness since 1939 despite having been altered countless times.
In 1995-6 the system did go through a more profound reform, but despite that, the old litigation model remained with rules, regulations and procedures that simply weren’t adequate for today’s world.
In short, the various changes failed to alter the judgement model, the way that articles and their parts were formed, or provide permanent and ongoing training for magistrates and lawyers to keep them updated and adapted to current realities.
Laws were too complex, there were too many of them. The reforms that had been carried out had been done in a complex organisational vacuum, without the staff or experts qualified to execute the changes and above all without a public administration that was capable of cooperating either in terms of numbers of training with the procedural alterations.
The minister, who recently made violent criticisms of the Beadle of the Order of Lawyers, Marinho Pinto, at the opening of the VII Lawyers Congress in Figueira da Foz, for using “lies and “offences” to block her reforms, said that an overhaul of the justice system was “vitally important for the country’s development”.
Paula Teixeira da Cruz said that the Government was determined to set up an “effective legal system of recouping non-paid credits”, which was vital for companies and healthy economic activities and for “instilling confidence and trust in the market place, particularly with foreign companies”.
It was also vital that a decision handed down from a judge would be seen to be carried out quickly and effectively.
Fighting corruption and interest lobbies were also “decisive factors” towards creating a more just society.
Improving the recruitment and training system for magistrates and lawyers was important, as was improving the Judicial Studies Centre with specific types of training for different justice professionals.
Streamline the current bankruptcy administrative process, redefining the priorities of creditors in the sense of quick decisions that would enable – without prejudicing the State or employees – the swift financial recovery of assets.
Developing an effective and fair arbitrational justice system in civil, commercial, employment, administrative and fiscal areas was also paramount so that citizens and companies could find workable and efficient alternatives to the law courts, entrusting the resolution of disputes to arbitrational courts which would free up the workload and improve the speed and efficiency of the general courts.
