Justice Minister Paula Teixeira da Cruz said today that provisional figures point to an “across-the-board 6% reduction of backlogs in Portugal’s courts, over 2014."
Teixeira da Cruz, said that Portugal had undergone an exhaustive list of structural reforms initiated by the Government, especially those covering the reorganisation of the courts.
"The justice system is now simpler, more agile, more efficient and more equitable," said Teixeira da Cruz at the opening ceremony of the judicial year in Lisbon.
On behalf of the Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho and in the knowledge that she is stepping down from her post, the minister justified the measures taken over the last four years by saying that it is important that the state is accountable to its citizens with "full transparency."
The minister quoted from data from the Chamber of Solicitors which revealed caseloads had reduced as 70% of debt collection actions have been cancelled when people did not have any identifiable assets to seize.
"The adoption of the new Civil Procedure Code has led to the simplification of procedures to make them quicker, the cancellation of debt collection cases and the creation of the pre-executive procedure to ascertain whether a debtor has assets worth seizing," according to the government's offcial line.
Paula Teixeira da Cruz of curse did not mention the failed launch of the new judicial map which revealed the computerised system Citius as so poorly developed that it crashed and was off air for six weeks. Cases simply went missing, courts were unprepared and staff untrained in Citius' operation, the closure of courts leaving many without access to justice and a backlog that was far worse than ever before with the system halted amid recrimination and blame.
The minister's lack of management control and habit of blaming others for failures within her ministry means few will mourn her stepping down from the post.
Her claim of a 6% reduction in the backlog of cases when compared to 2014 looks back at a year during whcih the backlog was at its highest due to the ministry's inability to develop and run the computer programme.
This had a disastrous impact on the smooth running of Portugal's justice system which remains among the slowest in Europe.
Teixeira da Cruz's disingenuous comparisons are, for many, the final insult and her departure from a post in which she too failed on takeoff is welcomed.
