Portugal’s Prime Minister, Pedro Passos Coelho, said today that he was confident that the situation in country’s judicial system “gradually will normalise” and that he has no reason at all to sack his Justice Minister, Paula Teixeira da Cruz (pictured).
The PM saw no reason to replace the minister whom the government has charged with undertaking the extraordinary reform that many governments have not had the courage to do.
The new 'judicial map' project officially was launched on September 1st amid confusion, an impenetrable IT system and an increasingly angry backlash from those charged with using it.
Lawyers, judges and magistrates all now have complained about the computer programme Citius which does not work, according to users.
The government started off by insisting that the system did work but the Bar Association then called for the Justice Ministry to suspend the implementation deadline.
The Ministry of Justice, having at first said that all was well, later reported that all the computer glitches have been identified and solutions are being implemented to overcome them. Careful briefings led the press away from the Justice Minsiter towards the Institute for Justice, Financial management and Infrastructure, but the buck stops with Justice Ministry whatever the technicalities.
The PM stressed that a "major reform" is being undertaken of which the new judicial map, which has seen over 20 courts close down, is only the "physically more visible" phase.
"It is very natural that small defects and small delays will occur," but Passos Coelho did admit that it would have been preferable to have installed a computer system that was immediately useable, acknowledging "there were shortcomings that have been flagged up."
"There were in fact some things that were not anticipated, neither the Justice Minister nor myself wash our hands of these. We take responsibility," he said in a rare admission that all was not well despite his normally halcyon view of the country’s ills.
According to the PM, the Citius computer system that was meant already to be managing the country’s overloaded court caseload will start to work from next week, progressively from county to county, as the problems are overcome.
Passos Coelho said it was important that he stated to the nation that Portuguese justice is working and that the courts are functioning.
"No one will be prevented from accessing justice due to these problems related to the implementation of our judicial map," he said, believing every word.
