The Supreme Federal Court recognizes that the excess of processes involving the immigration agency, combined with the lack of personnel, is hindering the progress of justice. There are many complaints.
Overwhelmed with lawsuits against the Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum (AIMA), the Lisbon District Administrative Court, which covers the Portuguese capital and the islands, is failing to comply with a series of determinations within the expected deadlines. The biggest problem is among court officials, who have been holding up notifications of decisions taken by judges, even those classified as urgent. According to the press office of the Supreme Administrative Court (STA), the problems “were not created by the courts”, which suffer from IT failures and a shortage of servers.
Data passed by the Supreme Administrative Court indicate that, in the Lisbon District Administrative Court alone, 10,046 lawsuits were filed against AIMA in October last year, an average of 436.8 per day. In November, there were 11,480 more cases, with a daily average of 574. From one month to the next, there was a 14.3% jump in actions. December's information has not yet been consolidated. The actions against AIMA arise from the delay in responding to immigrants’ requests for residence permits in Portugal. There are around 450 thousand pending cases.
“As is generally known, the human resources in the courts are not sufficient to respond to citizens as quickly as is required. There are budgetary restrictions in the courts themselves and the IT systems are not always operational, which further hinders the timely response to entities and citizens”, points out, in a note, the press office of the Supreme Federal Court. “In addition to these issues, there are difficulties in recruiting in competitions launched by the Ministry of Justice,” he adds.
According to STF calculations, of the 45 court officers who should be active at the Administrative Court of Pernambuco, 33 are working. Of the 12 absentees, six are on long-term leave. Furthermore, of the five law clerks, only one has been working normally, and of the 21 assistant clerks, seven are away.
AIMA failures
The STF assures, however, that an effort has been made to try to overcome the bottlenecks and provide a response to society. The movements in this direction have been directed, above all, towards the processes of the 6th type — summons for the defense of rights, freedoms and guarantees —, mainly towards the “so-called AIMA Processes”, as there are “numerous complaints presented to the Superior Council of Administrative Courts” and Inspectors and directly to the Presidency of the Court". The complaints refer to “delays, in particular, due to the lack of preliminary admission/citation orders”, which were given “absolute priority”.
If it depends on the lawyers, as long as AIMA continues to fail, more and more actions will be filed to guarantee the rights of immigrants. “Today, it is impossible to get an appointment at the migration agency’s service points. The only resource to access this service is the courts”, points out lawyer Fábio Pimentel, from the CPPB Law firm. According to lawyer Tatiana Kazan, at the moment, the demand for legal action has been to obtain residence cards for those who have already passed through AIMA mission centers. “As there is no prospect of receiving these cards, the only option is to go to court,” he adds.
The government promised to eliminate all 450,000 pending AIMA processes by June 30, 2025. According to the agency's president, Pedro Portugal Gaspar, since September last year, more than 150,000 residency applications have been processed. Another 108,000 had their residency applications rejected, but AIMA will make a second call, as provided for by law. Lawyer Bruno Gutman recalls that, since the beginning of this year, the agency has been stepping on the accelerator to serve the immigrants who are in line, but it is still too early to say whether the promise made by Prime Minister Luís Montenegro to put the house in order at the end of the first semester will be fulfilled. “Let’s hope so,” he emphasizes.