Portalegre MP warns of lack of staff and possible “disruption” of services

The number of court officials in the District of Portalegre is “out of adjustment” in relation to the volume of work, and the lack of investment in human resources could result in “a disruption of services”, warns a report from the local Public Prosecutor’s Office.

According to the Report of the Public Prosecutor’s Office of the District of Portalegre of 2023, published on the Public Ministry’s (MP) website and consulted by the Lusa agency, “the staffing map of court officials is out of adjustment with the volume of service in the district ”.

In the document, signed by the MP magistrate coordinating the District of Portalegre, Dulce Alves, it is mentioned that the Public Ministry services face a large backlog of cases in the centers of Elvas, Portalegre, Ponte de Sor and Fronteira.

At the Public Prosecutor’s Office of the Local Court of Elvas, on December 31 of last year, “3,476 cases” were pending, including “2,957 investigations”, with “two employees working in the area of ​​investigations for four magistrates”, you can read in the document, published this week.

“In the civil area, an employee is working with reduced working hours. Any of the employees working in the area of ​​investigations is responsible for more than 1,500 cases”, alludes to the report.

A ratio, the document states, “which far exceeds the procedural reference value considered for the staff of Justice Officers established by the Directorate-General for the Administration of Justice (DGAJ) in 2019 for the Public Prosecutor’s Office of the Local Court of Elvas” .

In relation to the Public Prosecutor’s Office of the Local Court of Portalegre, also on December 31, 2023, “1,869 cases were pending, including 1,473 investigations”, while, in the Public Prosecutor’s Office of the General Border Court, on the same date, “ 903 processes”.

According to the report, “1,062 cases” were pending at the General Competence Court Prosecutor’s Office in Ponte de Sor and “344 cases” were pending at the General Competence Court Prosecutor’s Office in Nisa.

Based on this data, the Public Prosecutor’s Office of the District of Portalegre maintains that “the planned staffing map is out of adjustment with the existing procedural volume” and “should be increased”.

“The services of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, especially in the centers of Fronteira, Portalegre and Elvas, record a large accumulation of services, as a result of the increase in procedural pending that has been occurring over the years, which has not been monitored in order to resize the staff to the volume of service in the district”, argues the document.

For the Public Prosecutor’s Office of the District of Portalegre, “the lack of investment in human resources could, in the short term, create a disruption in services”.

The report recognizes that the service that the court offers to the population “is slow”, also warning that employees “are exhausted” and, “with difficulty, try to respond to what is required of them”.

The report also alludes, among other issues, to the “lack of magistrates” and the turnover of MP magistrates: “This constant turnover of magistrates, most of whom have no professional experience, has negative impacts on the productivity of the district”.