A common administrative action to enforce non-contractual civil liability for an unlawful act resulting from delays in justice administration was filed with the Administrative and Fiscal Court (TAF) of Leiria in July.
In the initial petition, the judicial magistrate explains having been placed for a year in a court in the Leiria district as an auxiliary, although he exclusively performed the duties of a circuit judge during that period.
However, “illegally, the Superior Council of the Magistracy decided not to pay” the judge of the Judicial Court of the District of Leiria the monthly compensation due for exercising those functions, which “harmed him financially,” leading him to file an action with the TAF of Leiria in September 2014.
In February 2018, the magistrate’s claim was dismissed, prompting him to appeal in April to the Southern Central Administrative Court (TCAS), where the case “has been pending” for more than seven years, awaiting a final decision.
The judge notes that he is expected to retire at the beginning of 2026 but, referencing an order from a presiding judge, “it is not anticipated that a final decision will be made” in the case before his retirement.
“Nor is it, in fact, foreseen, in the near future, that such a decision will be made, although the author believes he will still be alive when it happens,” he remarks sarcastically.
Emphasizing that the Constitution establishes that “everyone has the right to have a case in which they intervene be decided upon within a reasonable time,” the judicial magistrate stresses that nearly 11 years to obtain a final decision in the case filed in September 2014 “is not a reasonable time frame.”
The judge cites a ruling from the Supreme Administrative Court (STA) from last December, which, in summary, recognizes that “the violation of the right to a judicial decision within a reasonable time (non-compliance with the ‘standards’ of reasonable process duration) constitutes an unlawful and culpable act,” denoting “abnormal functioning of the service,” as per the regime of non-contractual civil liability of the State and other public entities.
Thus, the delay in justice constitutes “a non-patrimonial damage due to the delay, due to the poor functioning of the service that did not render the judicial decision in due time,” the ruling states, which is in line with jurisprudence from the European Court of Human Rights.
This jurisprudence maintains that “the average duration—which corresponds to the reasonable duration—of a process in first instance is about three years and the average duration of the whole process should ordinarily correspond to a period ranging from four to six years, except for special cases.”
The judge contends that this is not a “special case,” therefore the process exceeds the “reasonable time for obtaining a final decision” by nearly five years, an excess that has “no justification” since the action “has no complexity.”
In this regard, “the author is entitled to compensation by the defendant [State],” the initial petition asserts, mentioning the same STA ruling, according to which the compensation for delay-related damage should be calculated at two thousand euros “per each year of unjustified procedural delay.”
Thus, the judge requests the State be ordered to pay him compensation for the non-patrimonial damage from the decision delay, “considering the unjustified delay of four years, ten months and eleven days, currently calculated at 9,600 euros,” plus “moratory interest, at the legal rate, due and maturing, from the respective due date until full and effective payment.”
