After leaving the Constitutional Court, where he formalized his candidacy for the presidential elections on January 18, António Filipe was questioned by journalists regarding the delay in concluding a specific case, the release of wiretaps, and whether he believes this affects the credibility of institutions.
“I think it obviously needs to be clarified. Of course it affects, and of course it calls into question the credibility of the justice system. Therefore, it is important that these issues are quickly resolved so that citizens trust the institutions,” responded the presidential candidate supported by the PCP and PEV.
Asked about the need for judicial reform, António Filipe stated that “the biggest problem with justice in Portugal is the lack of access to justice for many citizens who do not have the financial resources to resort to it.”
“This means that there must be other mechanisms for legal aid, not the ones that exist today, which are clearly insufficient. There need to be enough justice professionals; there is also a significant difficulty regarding staff and even at the level of magistrates, and investment in justice is required,” he added.
The former deputy and lawyer mentioned that there have been “many pacts, many projects” for reforming the justice sector and emphasized that “the President of the Republic is not the legislator” capable of implementing changes in this area.
“The problem is not just a lack of initiative; it’s a lack of political will from the parliamentary majority to push these legislative changes forward,” he pointed out.
According to António Filipe, it is evident that “there are changes that need to be made,” at the legislative level, for example, “measures to prevent delaying maneuvers, where cases drag on due to incident upon incident.”
“Moreover, there must be resources in justice, meaning that investigations should not drag on due to a lack of resources, whether human or material. And there must also be interventions by the justice agents themselves to lend credibility to their own intervention,” he concluded.
The magazine Sábado released on Wednesday a summary of wiretap transcripts involving former Prime Minister António Costa as part of Operation Influencer, an investigation by the Public Prosecutor’s Office regarding the establishment of a data center in Sines, which led to his resignation as head of the Government in November 2023.
