Portuguese courts ended 2023 with more than 581,000 pending cases, a slight increase (0.3%) compared to 2022, according to statistics released today by the Directorate-General for Justice Policy (DGPJ).
According to last year’s figures, there were 581,891 cases pending before the courts of first instance (not including the sentencing courts), which is 1,759 more than in 2022.
Last year 431,512 cases were filed (3.4% more than in 2022) and 429,753 were declared closed (6.5% less than in the previous year).
Despite the slight increase in the number of cases, justice statistics show that pending cases are well below the peak recorded in 2012, when the backlog was over 1.6 million cases.
According to the DGPJ, pending cases include all those that have entered the system and have yet to receive a final decision, whether in the form of a judgment, sentence or order in the respective instance, regardless of whether the decision has become final or not.
The majority of cases filed (63%) and completed (65%) in 2023 were in the civil area, and there was also a slight increase in family and juvenile justice.
There were fewer new cases in the criminal and labor areas, but in all procedural areas there was a drop in the number of cases completed.
The difference in pending cases compared to 2022 resulted in a drop in the procedural resolution rate – which measures the capacity of the judicial system in a given year to cope with the demand for new cases – to 99.6% in 2023, “the first time in the last 11 years that the procedural resolution rate has been unfavorable”.
