President of the Supreme says that “the wait is long” for reforms and asks for action – Society

The President of the Supreme Court of Justice (STJ), Henrique Araújo, defended this Saturday that “the wait for a real reform of Justice is already long”, called for action and that the constitutional revision be taken advantage of to restructure the system.

“This is the moment when the country’s political leaders have to look at Justice with great attention and trigger the legislative processes of reform of Justice, listening to all those who operate in this area”, said this Saturday Henrique Araújo, at the closing of the XII Congress of Portuguese Judges, taking place in Funchal since Thursday.

Referring to the proposals of the Associação Sindical dos Juízes Portugueses (ASJP) for a reform of the sector, which outline “an exhaustive picture of the measures that could improve the functioning of the system”, even recognizing that they are only possible “with political consensus and pacts regime”, and pointed to the ongoing constitutional revision as the “ideal” moment to introduce “significant changes in the organizational model of the courts and their management and disciplinary bodies”.

“It seems to me, however, that this opportunity will be lost”, he said.

Recognizing that the ASJP’s set of proposals is “understandably unfeasible in a short period of time”, he defended that “it would be of the utmost importance to stratify priorities”, not least because he believes that it cannot “make the implementation of the most urgent measures depend on a law of programming for justice”.

“The wait is already long for a true reform of Justice, which cannot be limited to the modernity of some themes, such as digitalization or the use of artificial intelligence in the courts. This is the moment for making important decisions for the area of Justice,” he said.

The president of the STJ also regretted the aggressive criticism, “with truculence”, aimed at people and without constructive sense, stressing that “the form also has substance”.

“It is true that current times are marked by mistrust, a lot of anxiety and impatience. We live in what a famous researcher of political and social philosophy calls an ‘irritated democracy’, in which criticism is, so to speak, uncritical, in to the extent that it only carries loads of indignation or uneasiness, without useful content. Since this type of purely destructive criticism is frequent in Portugal, the little progress in the realization of ideas is explained”, he said.

Henrique Araújo also regretted that in Justice the construction of solutions is done “against each other” and not “with each other”.

“This is the moment to act. Together. With each other”, he concluded.