An emergency meeting is scheduled for Wednesday morning between the Administrative and Tax Courts Superior Council (CSTAF) and Secretary of State for Justice, Ana Luísa Machado. The meeting, prompted by issues arising from a recent IT system migration, comes as Machado transitions from her role overseeing the Institute for Financial Management and Justice Equipment (IGFEJ), under the Ministry of Justice and responsible for the courts’ IT systems.
At the meeting, presidents of the first and second instance administrative and tax courts will push for a resolution to the ongoing issues by next week. If unresolved, they will demand an immediate halt to the IT system migration, reactivation of the previous jurisdiction system, “the old SITAF,” and a gradual migration process, beginning with a pilot project in one court.
The migration has affected both the Public Ministry and judicial magistracies, causing operational disruptions in line with the new law since the shutdown of the previous IT system on the 20th of this month.
On the 20th, a unified IT system for processing cases was implemented, transitioning from the SITAF system to Citius under IGFEJ guidance. Despite the switch to a single system, distinct interfaces remain based on user roles, with prosecutors using MPCODEX and judges utilizing MAGISTRATUS.
Both systems are reportedly malfunctioning, with assurances from Susana Moura, a prosecutor at the Administrative and Tax Court of Viseu and national directorate treasurer of the Public Ministry Magistrates Union (SMMP), and Eliana de Almeida Pinto, a judge secretary of CSTAF.
The transition has led to various issues: missing processes during migration, restricted access to personal and colleague files, exclusion of lawyers from cases, inability to submit procedural documents electronically, requests for lawyers to submit documents physically at court offices against legal requirements, and loss of essential IT tools for court functions.
“It’s chaos. We have no confidence in our current operations,” Susana Moura expressed, criticizing IGFEJ’s lack of response and the ineffective fault-reporting process.
Eliana Pinto noted that CSTAF established a ‘taskforce’ in April to monitor the migration with IGFEJ, conducting several meetings and tests that, initially, showed no issues but later revealed significant problems.
“Everything seemed safeguarded. We highlighted special jurisdiction procedures needing adjustments in the new IT system. The situation now is total chaos, with processes misplaced, even those of the Supreme Administrative Court appearing in lower courts,” said Pinto.
Eliana Pinto further mentioned that the South Central Administrative Court has already announced that scheduled trials for Thursday will be canceled due to these issues.
She highlighted that thousands of processes related to migrant regularization in Portugal, known as AIMA processes (Agency for Integration, Migration, and Asylum), are misallocated in the system. Without IT corrections, judges in those sections might need to individually redirect each case properly.
“140,000 dispatches are impractical,” said Pinto.
She emphasized the CSTAF’s constraints in fulfilling its oversight mission of the courts’ activities without system access, jeopardizing constitutional separation of powers due to an IT failure by an entity under the Ministry of Justice, representing the executive branch.
