"This petition seems untimely and looks more like a political agenda than anything else, because when they could have contributed to the Justice reform, they didn't", criticized António Marçal, with the exception of former PSD leader Rui Rio who "has been raising the issue" of justice "for a long time"

António Marçal told Agência Lusa that the position of the signatories of the document "is late" and "also somewhat suspicious" for emerging only now in "reaction to specific cases", including the Influencer case and the Madeira case, considering that it took proceedings against "powerful people" for a manifesto signed also by "powerful people" to emerge.

The president of SFJ stressed that he is also concerned about the situation of Justice when the ordinary citizen is involved, as "access to Justice is a complete fallacy".

"Only the poorest and most destitute have access to legal aid, which in Portugal is miserable", stressed António Marçal, regretting that many of the signatories, who are part of the political and legislative power, have done nothing to change the Justice landscape when the responsibility for the functioning of the Public Prosecutor's Office and the courts lies with these powers, which also approve the Code of Criminal Procedure and the Law on the Organization of Criminal Investigation.

In addition, he recalled, it is up to the Government to submit the name of the Attorney General of the Republic to the President of the Republic.

Thus, António Marçal distances himself from this manifesto of "powerful people" who, he considered, came to demonstrate about "specific cases" of justice that also involve "powerful people".

In the meantime, the Ministry of Justice (MJ) said today that it is "very concerned" about the situation in which the PS government left the area, highlighting the strikes in the sector, the lack of magistrates and judicial officers and the poor conditions of the courts.

In a comment sent to Lusa about the manifesto signed by 50 personalities in defense of a "civic shock" that ends the "worrying inertia" of political agents in relation to Justice reform, the ministry of Rita Júdice points the finger at the previous executive and says that it is "working hard to try to solve these problems, from the first minute".

On Thursday, a group of 50 personalities appealed to the President of the Republic, the Government and the parliament to take initiatives that, while respecting the independence of the courts, the autonomy of the Public Prosecutor's Office and the guarantees of judicial defense, resolve the "bottlenecks and dysfunctions that have long undermined its effectiveness and its public legitimacy".

Read Also: Manifesto for reform in Justice "is perversity of the political system" (Portuguese version)