In a statement published on the website, whose opening page displays the message “The fee table for access to justice has not been updated for” and a counter indicating 19 years, nine months, and two days, the President and the General Council of the Portuguese Bar Association (OA) acknowledged that negotiations with the Government to update fees in the Legal Aid and Courts System (SADT) “are not proceeding with the priority that the matter demanded.”
According to the released statement, the Ministry of Justice has not shown any intention so far to accommodate a change in the fee table values in the next State Budget. As a result, the OA decided to “move forward with various protest actions to make the Ministry of Justice and the Government understand the urgency of this matter,” criticizing “the continued disrespect” for professionals.
“Lawyers should be given the opportunity to decide whether or not they want to remain registered in the SADT schedules under these conditions,” the statement said, adding: “They may and should, individually, if they believe that the current remuneration is not proportional to the services provided, not register for the in-person and on-call schedules within the SADT, giving a clear signal to political power.”
The OA’s note also emphasized that registrations exclusively for in-person and on-call schedules for a one-month period will soon be opened, and that at the end of September, registrations for these schedules will be reopened. They hope that by then, there will be “a table that dignifies the exercise of the profession.”
The President, Fernanda Almeida Pinheiro, and the OA’s General Council, led by Paulo Sá e Cunha, also stressed that the possibility of not registering for the schedules should have the least possible financial impact on these professionals (the vast majority practicing individually) and that a new registration should not have disciplinary consequences.
Although emphasizing that it does not have the power to “unilaterally stop” the SADT, the OA stressed the need for unity in the profession to “send this message to political power.”