Maria José Costeira has been appointed as the new president of the Trade Union Association of Judges, her priority is for better courts and more judges.
Costeria now represents all of the country’s judges and is the first woman to hold this position.
Elected on Saturday, Maria José Costeira, 47, said her first big challenge is to enhance the status of judges and then to see the completion of the new judicial map introduced last September by Justice Minister Paula Teixeira.
Despite teething troubles with the computerisation of the Justice system, Costeira said that what matters now is results, despite the many complaints the system has caused, "We want to increase the speed and response of the courts. For this we need better facilities and more judicial officials," noted Costeira.
Commenting on the new paedophile database proposed by the government, Costeira is critical of the draft legislation that is soon to be discussed in parliament, "We made comments against the proposed system. There then were some changes but, in essence, the database still does not solve anything. Why must a parent have access to a list of possible suspects to learn if they live in the area? If there is evidence of pedophilia involving suspects, this is for the investigating authorities."
As for the computerised court management system, ‘Citius,’ which crashed for six weeks from last September 1st, this remains of great concern to the judges, said Costeira, "We do not know the cause of the crash in the Citius programme which can happen again and we still are awaiting a technical report on what happened."
Costeira’s summary included the statement, "Citizens need a good justice system."
This was echoed by the Director General of Microsoft Portugal who said this weekend that that Portugal has to be "much faster" in penalising wrong doers and stressed that the constraints of Portugal’s national justice system are discussed by international companies to the detriment of the country’s credibility.
João Couto, said that 2015 will be a year of growth, adding that with political stability this would be more rapid and that the country must continue with its economic reforms regardless of the parliamentary elections.
Regarding the justice system, “with all of these scandals that have occurred, we must be much faster to establish the facts and to penalise those who are guilty, " said Couto.
"This is one of the major topics that always comes up in discussion with international companies,” adding that credibility can be enhanced if Portugal’s justice system acted swiftly and efficiently, which it does not.