The Union of Judicial Officers estimates that there are 500,000 cases that are not yet appearing on the new Citius computer package that was introduced in an effort to speed up Portugal’s court systems.
A survey of 130 bailiffs indicated several flaws in the new system introduced first on September 1st, and then again in early October.
António Marcal, the general secretary of the union, explains that there are still 500,000 cases to migrate from the old records system to the new Citius software and has no idea when this work will be done.
Among the faults mentioned in the survey, the hold up in adding these processes is the number 1 gripe from bailiffs keen to get on with their grim task.
Marcal said that by extrapolating the 3.5 million existing number of cases, there should by now be a further 500,000 classified processes which should be showing up on the Citius system, but are not.
The union boss says he can not predict when the situation will be remedied, and commented that "it's all a shambles."
As many of these cases involve fines and coercive collection processes, the Ministry of Finance will be behind on its own stiff income targets.
Finanças office staff and management will be missing out on the percentages they collect from each case where a coercive collection order has been executed and money extracted from bank accounts, the sale of domestic goods and seized vehicles.
