According to data provided to Lusa by CSTAF, in the period between 16 July and 31 August – also known as the extended summer shift – each of the 136 magistrates (including judges still on probation) ruled on average around 10 summons cases for the defence of rights, freedoms and guarantees in the Administrative Court of the Lisbon District (TACL).

These cases have been filed by immigrants over the last few months so that the Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum (AIMA) can urgently resolve the legalization of their status in national territory, given the agency's inability to respond in a timely manner to the almost 400,000 pending cases, including expressions of interest (submitted until their immediate termination in June) and residence permits.

In view of the constraints posed by the thousands of summonses (a procedural means for the protection of rights, freedoms and guarantees) submitted, the CSTAF decided on July 9 to increase its resources in view of the need to “take urgent measures” to strengthen its response capacity during the judicial vacation period, and to ensure, “during this period, the effectiveness of the judicial protection of the fundamental rights of citizens who resort to it”.

The CSTAF also reported that the 21 judges assigned to the TACL common court, who were not included in the extended summer shift, decided a total of 1,513 cases during the judicial vacations (680 judgments between 16 and 31 July and 833 between 1 and 31 August).

According to CSTAF statistics, there were only 574 pending summonses at the TACL on 1 January 2024. Between that date and 7 June, 5,590 more of these cases were filed at this instance and 1,977 were resolved, which increased the pending process to 4,187.

However, the numbers continued to worsen after June, the month in which the Government announced the immediate end of the regime for expressions of interest (among other measures announced in the Migration Plan), with 14,162 more summonses being filed between June 8 and September 11 at the TACL, which was only able to make decisions on 3,481 during that period, leaving 14,868 cases pending.

“It is also noted that after the end of the judicial vacations, from September 2024, six judges will work exclusively on cases of the 6th type [summonses]. On average, 400 cases of this type have been distributed to these six judges every day. As of today (September 27, 2024), 19,292 of these cases are pending at the Lisbon TAC”, the body that governs the administrative and tax courts told Lusa.

The Government has now created a mission structure to help resolve the 400,000 pending legalisation processes for immigrants at AIMA and, earlier this month opened the first service centre with extended opening hours and more than a hundred people, located at the Hindu Centre in Telheiras (Lisbon).

The government also announced in June the creation of a new legal structure, with extended powers, to speed up the resolution of immigration and asylum processes, which should be located at the Justice Campus in Lisbon but has not yet been implemented.

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