In the report, the Council of Europe anti-corruption body GRECO emphasises the importance of integrity, accountability and transparency rules.
GRECO stresses that the accountability of members of parliament (MPs) has been undermined by a conflict of interests’ regime and incompatibility rules that are too permissive.
In this respect, it underlines the need to evaluate the effectiveness of the entire system for the prevention, disclosure, ascertainment and sanctioning of conflicts of interest, and to reinvigorate it.
The report adds: “Moreover the Portuguese authorities should address the lack of timely and in-depth monitoring of MPs’ assets and the procedure for lifting the immunity of deputies of the regional legislative assemblies.”
The report also notes that no rules of conduct have yet been established for MPs. The perception that parliament’s activities are only ostensibly transparent persists due to the lack of regulation of MPs’ contacts with third parties, and the insufficient openness of the law making process to other stakeholders.
Although the new judicial map was introduced in Portugal in September 2014, neither the statute of judges nor the statute of prosecutors have been aligned to it. This has resulted, for judges, in discordant regulation of their transfer within district courts and of re-allocation of cases and, for prosecutors, in an erosion of the required strict hierarchical subordination.
According to GRECO, the lack of financial autonomy of courts and of the Public Prosecution Service is also problematic, and undermines the status of the judiciary as a separate state power and of the Prosecution Service as an autonomous body.
The vulnerability of the judiciary to undue political interference is accentuated by the prevalence of non-judges in the composition of the judicial councils for ordinary, administrative and tax courts.
The report also points out that standards of professional conduct for judges and prosecutors do not exist, and the concealing of certain details of the outcome of disciplinary procedures hinders the accountability of judges and prosecutors as well as that of the judicial and prosecutorial councils.
GRECO will assess the implementation of the recommendations by Portugal in a compliance report to be adopted by the end of 2017.