Modernisation of the Justice Sector in Portugal

1. Modernisation of the justice sector in Portugal: Assessment and recommendations

Abstract

This chapter outlines the main takeaways of the OECD assessment of modernisation of the justice sector in Portugal and summarises key policy recommendations to help the country advance in the main areas covered in this report. OECD recommendations have been designed to support Portugal in attaining its strategic objectives of modernisation in the areas of design and delivery of justice services, skills, data and digital governance for access to justice.

1.1. Introduction

This report describes Portugal’s modernisation efforts in the justice sector, assesses opportunities and challenges, and provides recommendations for the successful transformation in the areas of design and delivery of justice services, skills, data and digital governance for access to justice.

The report identifies potential areas to establish a clear people-centred purpose at all levels of the justice system, implement ongoing, comprehensive programme for the assessment of legal needs, and enhance design and delivery of justice services by following a people-centred purpose and improving the availability, quality and use of data. Based on the OECD Recommendation on Access to Justice and People-Centred Justice Systems (OECD, 2023[1]) and the experience of other OECD countries, this chapter summarises key policy recommendations to support Portugal’s ongoing efforts to modernise its justice sector and help advance its efforts in the areas of design and delivery of justice services, skills, data and digital governance for access to justice.

1.2. Establishing a clear people-centred purpose at all levels of the justice system

The current justice modernisation agenda in Portugal has a potential to transform people’s experience with the justice services and to contribute to the increase in trust in the justice system. This is a unique opportunity for Portugal to build on the current reforms and to steer the future efforts towards a people-centred approach.

While Portugal displays strong leadership at the highest level of the justice sector and firm commitment of justice institutions to achieving their existing missions and working within their areas of responsibility and mandates, there is scope to further embrace a people-centred approach to justice. Looking ahead, there is an opportunity to articulate a clear, people-centred purpose at the highest level of the justice system. This overarching approach could be disseminated throughout the whole justice sector and reflected in updated people-centred mandates across all justice institutions.

Furthermore, Portugal may consider using the results of its legal needs survey (LNS), along with more comprehensive LNS conducted regularly. Portugal could leverage the results of more comprehensive and justice-system wide satisfaction surveys and assessments across the entire justice system as the starting point in shaping strategic programmes and initiatives in justice.

Specifically, it is recommended that Portugal:

• Consider reviewing policies and mandates of justice institutions, services and organisations to ensure clear people-centricity, based on an understanding of legal needs, in order to set the direction across the justice system in Portugal.

• Consider adopting a people-centred approach for designing, planning and delivering new components and initiatives of the current reform programmes, and new legal and justice services more broadly.

1.3. Implementing an ongoing, comprehensive programme for the assessment of legal needs

Among the first steps in designing and delivering people-centred justice systems is the identification of the legal and justice needs of the community. While gaining some insight into the pathways people take in response to their legal problems was among Portugal’s main objectives of the diagnostic phase of this project, legal need analysis, and especially LNS, can provide important insight into people’s pathways – as it can to other key information requirements, including the impact of legal problems on people, the barriers they face to resolving their problems, and others. Portugal may wish to consider the potential of LNS data contributing to other key information requirements as part of ongoing efforts to systematically assess legal needs on a regular basis.

The following recommendations might be contemplated:

• Consider implementing an ongoing, comprehensive and cost-effective programme for assessing the legal needs of the people by conducting periodic legal needs surveys.

• Consider, (in order to support this programme and to provide data for people-centred planning), enhancing the collection and consistency of other data sources (e.g. criminal prosecution, service delivery, official demographic data) to provide further insight into the nature and location of legal needs and relative gaps in service delivery (e.g. proximity sections of judicial courts location), and targeted qualitative data from ongoing engagement with key priority groups, including vulnerable communities.

1.4. Enhancing access to and awareness of justice services

The mapping conducted in this report made it possible to identify certain aspects that might benefit from reforms to help Portugal enhance access to and awareness of dispute resolution mechanisms and related justice and support services in Portugal. There is scope to promote ongoing engagement and raise awareness about various dispute resolution options among both potential service users and referral institutions. These include any of the various courts (including proximity sections of judicial courts, and administrative and tax courts), alternative dispute resolution mechanisms (ADR) (including mediation and arbitration services), and other justice and related services, Additionally, there is a need to enhance referral strategies among government and community agencies using a multi-channel approach (and not limited to official judicial institutions only) to ensure that a broader spectrum of users is directed to the most appropriate and affordable services that cater to their specific needs. Enhanced referral strategies will likely have both local and national level dimensions, and might incorporate telephone/online referral service(s).

The mapping conducted for this report indicated that alternative dispute resolution (ADR) can be strengthened. Arbitration can be perceived by users as overly complex and could benefit from rationalisation and simplification to improve accessibility. This includes evaluating accredited arbitration centres, considering greater rationalisation of jurisdictions and organisations, and reviewing the funding model for ADR generally, noting that ADR should be considered an essential component of the overall continuum of justice services. Likewise, there is scope to fully realise the potential of justice of the peace courts, indicating a need for national network expansion, funding model review, and enhanced community and professional engagement. Lastly, the administration of data collection to guide the planning and operations of justice services, including proximity sections of judicial courts and mediation services, suggests a significant area for development to better inform strategies and enhance service delivery.

In this regard, Portugal may consider the following recommendations:

• Consider collecting people-centred data (in addition to currently collected performance data) to guide the planning and operations of the range of justice services (e.g. proximity sections of judicial courts, administrative and tax courts, justice of the peace courts and mediation).

• Enhance referral strategies among a wide range of justice sector, broader government and community agencies (within relevant region) to ensure that people can be most effectively referred to the services (legal and related) that they need. The enhanced referral strategies:

  • Will likely have local as well as national dimensions, reflecting both local community engagement by many in the community, and also reflecting the economies that can be gained through online referral across the country;

  • May incorporate an increased use of proximity sections of judicial courts as local referral points as part of the local ‘dimension’ to the strategy. It is assessed that incorporating proximity sections should be encouraged, as should the training of proximity court staff (and justice sector staff more broadly) to refer users to a greater range of most appropriate and affordable services that best meet their need;

  • Might include the consideration of establishing a national referral telephone line/online call centre with the responsibility of providing basic information as well as referrals to the most appropriate legal services to address the particular legal problem, in the location and manner most suitable to the client.

• Consider evaluating accredited arbitration centres, and rationalising and simplifying arbitration processes to reduce complexity, avoid restrictive competences and mandates, and improve access by setting a smaller yet comprehensive range of appropriately funded and authorised arbitration centres across the country; a wider jurisdiction for matters permitted to be dealt with by the different arbitration service providers, without compromising the requirement for specialisation when necessary; and reviewing the funding model for ADR generally, to achieve greater consistency, access and a “no-wrong-door” approach.

• Promote ongoing and committed engagement and awareness-raising programmes for justice services (e.g. for legal aid, mediation, proximity sections of judicial courts, justice of the peace, administrative and tax courts, court services and dispute resolution mechanisms in general), targeting audiences from potential service users to government and non-government referral institutions.

• Consider reviewing the system of costs to ensure that people with financial limitations or people experiencing disadvantages are not effectively excluded from accessing administrative and tax courts.

• Consider widening the potential of justice of the peace courts by expanding the network nationally, reviewing the funding model, adopting an omni-channel approach to accessing justice of the peace courts including online channels (Digital Peace Court), and enhancing community and professional engagement.

1.5. Upskilling Portugal's justice sector towards a people-centred and digitally-enabled future

People-centred modernisation of the justice sector calls for increased capacities to further improve responsiveness of justice service design and delivery. While structural investments are necessary, skills’ development strategy are also an asset for the Portuguese advancement along the path of reforms that has been launched.

This implies fully-fledged awareness of the stakeholders about their level of skills, need for upskilling, and the gaps between the current status quo and the ambitious goals of a people-centred justice system. It calls for skills development and learning of the whole justice stakeholders’ ecosystem and requires managerial staff to support cross-sectorial and cross-field transformation embedded into concrete organisational structuring processes.

To strengthen the skills of stakeholders across the justice chain, Portugal could:

• Implement targeted upskilling programmes by:

  • Continue developing and implementing targeted competency development programmes to enhance digital literacy and data analysis skills among justice sector employees, including understanding the general use of online tools, equipping them with essential knowledge on big data, cybersecurity, data protection, and ethical use of artificial intelligence in the justice system.

  • Continue providing on a more frequent basis programmes and guidelines to support the development of competencies for delivering people-centred legal and justice services, including effective communication with diverse groups, understanding the needs of vulnerable populations, and designing accessible services for all, including those with disabilities, LGBTQIA+, children, and the elderly.

  • Continue providing on a more frequent basis training and guidelines for justice system’s employees on people-centred design principles, focusing on tailoring services to meet the diverse needs of the population, including leveraging data and digital technologies, and localising services and adaptations.

  • Continue enhancing networking and leadership capabilities to facilitate co-operation across the public sector and autarchies, and between justice institutions, governmental levels, and sectors, also with a view to emphasising collaborative problem-solving, stakeholder engagement (including users), and the promotion of a common vision for modernising the justice sector.

  • Encourage initiatives that promote an understanding of the interconnectedness between the justice sector and other sectors such as health and social services, including through joint development opportunities and cross-sectoral project teams.

• Ensure higher responsiveness, accessibility, and efficiency of skills development programmes by:

  • Enhancing the availability of training programmes for all stakeholders and establishing new ones where they are currently lacking.

  • Strengthening skills development opportunities with largest gaps, including people-centred approaches, digitalisation, and networking and leadership.

  • Continue tailoring upskilling programmes on the basis of the needs of different professionals (e.g. managers, ICT professionals).

  • Continue empowering justice actors and justice service users through building digital skills and capabilities.

  • Develop robust mechanisms for monitoring and evaluating the impact of skills development programmes and the overall modernisation of the justice sector, including the development of metrics for assessing improvements in service delivery, user satisfaction, and the efficiency of justice processes.

• Strengthen leadership capabilities for managers to steer modernisation of the justice sector by:

  • Equipping managers with the skills and resources to support their teams effectively, including developing competencies in staff empowerment, digital transformation leadership, and fostering an inclusive and innovative workplace culture.

  • Encouraging managers to foster and endorse upskilling initiatives, while also increasing awareness about the presence and importance of skills enhancement programmes.

  • Developing opportunities for managerial staff to exchange more frequently with each other and in their departments on the challenges relating to modernisation and people-centred approaches.

  • Introducing a regular mapping process of mismatches and gaps between the functional demands addressed by digital justice services and the capabilities of ICT professionals and users.

• Enhance organisational processes to fully support and enable unfolding of individuals’ skills by:

  • Cultivating an organisational culture that values continuous learning, experimentation, and feedback, including via recognition and reward of innovation, encouragement of cross-learning among teams, and regular assessment of skills development needs.

  • Reviewing and streamlining organisational processes to support continuous learning, skills development, and effective performance management, including the creation of more flexible structures for accessing training, improving feedback mechanisms, (horizontal and vertical) communication channels and enhancing the alignment of individual skills with organisational strategic goals and government’s broader vision.

  • Strengthening participative design and implementation of skills development policies from early stages.

  • Considering establishing a structured dialogue with the key actors within each organisation's ecosystem to build awareness and efficiency of organisational processes for skills development.

  • Introducing a synergic approach for organisational stakeholders (through points of contact) and training providers to advance justice transformation.

  • Developing a long-term strategic vision for enhancing skills and empowering staff at the organisational level.

1.6. Enhancing the design and delivery of justice services for a people-centred purpose

Assessment conducted as part of this report suggests that there is scope to embrace a people-centred approach to designing, planning and delivering justice services in Portugal. A notable concern is the identification and mapping of legal services, including legal aid, to address the needs and gaps within the justice system. This issue would be assisted by the regular legal needs surveys. Moreover, the state of play of legal aid applications suggests a need for a comprehensive review to ensure that legal aid is distributed appropriately across different regions and demographic groups in greatest need, thereby addressing the legal needs of the population more effectively.

Additionally, the planning and delivery of legal services in Portugal faces the challenge of ensuring that these services are targeted towards specific groups in need. The absence of a long-term, comprehensive justice strategy further exacerbates these issues, highlighting the need for a unified approach that encompasses different branches within the justice sector to establish a set of achievable priorities. The governance framework supporting the justice strategy in Portugal requires significant enhancement to facilitate the development of a seamless, people-centred justice ecosystem. This involves not only the identification of knowledge gaps and the adoption of good practices within Portugal and across countries but also the implementation of consistent guidelines and improved co-ordination among various government portfolios and related services.

It is recommended that Portugal might:

• Consider adopting a people-centred planning process that includes the regular conduct of legal need surveys (as part of a broader process to assess legal need), and the mapping of services delivered (including legal aid) to identify needs and gaps, and inform the design and delivery of justice policies and services.

• Develop a long-term, comprehensive justice strategy that incorporates (as far as possible) different branches within the justice sector to establish a sector-wide set of achievable priorities, enhancing resource efficiency and fostering a people-centred approach.

• Base the justice strategy on a clear, evidence-based understanding of the justice needs of the population, focusing on identifying those who need justice services the most, their specific legal challenges, and the barriers they encounter in resolving these issues.

• Consider the creation of a solid governance framework to support the comprehensive justice strategy, facilitating the strengthening of the overall justice infrastructure towards a seamless, people-centred justice ecosystem, and identification of knowledge gaps and good practices within Portugal and across countries.

• Implement consistent guidelines and improve co-ordination between different government portfolios and related services to support the effective allocation of resources and the implementation of agreed-upon priorities in a complex modern government environment.

• Prioritise and support monitoring, evaluation, trial and piloting activities to address gaps in justice service delivery.

• Ensure the knowledge of ‘what strategies work’ most effectively and efficiently, and any trials/pilots are adequately resourced to ensure the implementations of lessons learnt.

• Consider reviewing legislation and regulations related to legal representation to align with a people-centred approach, aiming to guarantee access to suitable and affordable legal services that suit the specific needs of individuals.

• Consider any mandatory requirements for legal representation to ensure that such mandatory provisions do not act as a barrier to people taking action, especially for those who may find it challenging to afford legal representation yet are not eligible for legal aid.

• Consider reviewing the effectiveness and accessibility of the legal aid application process (e.g. through mapping availability of advice and assistance, justice and legal institutions, local governments, parish boards, legal professions) by identifying the legal needs of the population, and from which groups and which regions appropriate proportions of legal aid applications might be expected.

• Consider establishing a strategic partnership between the Directorate-General for Justice Policy (DGPJ) and Social Security Institute (ISS), especially in light of the connections already established through the legal aid application process, with a view to developing enhanced and co-ordinated mapping of legal need, legal service and a range of social service datasets to enhance the understanding of the needs, capabilities and vulnerabilities of different groups of people.

• Continue engaging with the legal profession to ensure that through the adoption of a people-centred approach, the implementation of appropriate incentives and restrictions, and appropriate training and guidelines, lawyers are able to recommend and use the most effective and affordable pathways from users’ perspectives and take up innovations designed to improve access.

1.7. Enhancing availability, quality and use of data for people-centred justice

Portugal has made significant progress in the past years in measuring performance to evaluate and monitor progress in its justice system (OECD, 2020[2]). These steps included a set of strategic performance goals and key performance indicators intended to provide a nuanced assessment of the justice system by considering, among other aspects, operational efficiency, simplification, timeliness and satisfaction with services. These efforts demonstrate commitment to enhancing transparency, efficiency, and the overall effectiveness of the justice system in Portugal.

Scope remains, however, to significantly improve the Portuguese justice data framework. This involves adopting a people-centred approach to data collection including the collection of a range of people-centred variables, enhancing the use of satisfaction surveys, and integrating demand and intervention data to better understand and respond to users' needs. Establishing standardised protocols, alongside government-led strategies for data management, is another important aspect to improve data quality and consistency. Additionally, fostering strategic partnerships and promoting data integration across various sectors can enrich data-driven justice policy and services. Continuous investment in digital technologies and human resources for data management can contribute to further unlocking the use of data for people-centred justice in Portugal.

In order to take significant efforts to the next level, Portugal could consider the following recommendations:

• Follow a people-centred approach when identifying indicators, and collecting and making data available by placing the focus on information requirements to meet the users’ needs rather than concentrating on an institutional perspective of justice data.

• Consider increasing the use (both in terms of the range of institutions/processes covered, and by improving respondent response rates) and broadening the scope of user satisfaction surveys, including indicators on case outcome, to obtain a more comprehensive understanding of users’ needs, desired outcomes and preferred pathways across the justice system in Portugal.

• Consider developing communication strategies to support the learning and dissemination of lessons from outcome and satisfaction surveys.

• Consider integrating demand and intervention data (e.g. through legal needs surveys) regularly into the Portuguese justice data framework to monitor people’s needs and the effectiveness of judicial interventions, and inform strategic planning, and the design and delivery of justice policies and services.

• Consider improving consistency, accuracy and overall quality of data by establishing standardised protocols that include common methodology across relevant stakeholders on the types of data and specific variables to be collected, legal issue taxonomies, definitions of key people-centred variables, the frequency of data collection, the format for data submission, data validation and quality monitoring criteria, and continuous adherence to national and international standards for justice statistics.

• Consider dedicating a government leadership for developing and implementing data collection and reporting strategies, which include planning and developing information systems capable of capturing and providing the necessary data to ensure consistency on data collection and reporting practices across the broader justice system.

• Consider improving human resources on data management and analysis to harness the potential of data by delivering training and implementing mechanisms for the extraction and meaningful analysis of data.

• Promote incentives to data management excellence, such as recognition programmes, performance-related bonuses and professional development opportunities.

• Promote strategic partnerships for collaboration among stakeholders (within and outside the public sector), with the long-term goal of building comprehensive datasets; exchanging data, knowledge and best practices; and co-designing justice policies and services.

• Consider promoting data integration across stakeholders at national, regional and local levels, including those from non-justice policy areas (e.g. education, welfare, social protection, child protection, emergency response), while fully respecting fundamental rights, privacy and data protection.

• Continue expanding the use of digital technologies to enable efficient data collection and analysis.

1.8. Leveraging digital technologies and data for people-centred justice

Portugal has made significant efforts to accelerate digital transformation of the justice system and integrate digital technologies and data to design and deliver people-centred justice. Portugal’s strategic documents echo the government’s commitment to accelerate innovation and leverage digital technologies and data to improve people’s life, building on previous efforts for administrative simplification.

Despite these extensive efforts, there is still room for improvement in existing governance arrangements for digital transformation of the justice system. This includes areas such as ICT infrastructure, the sustainability of strategic plans over time, institutional and individual capabilities, and data governance. Addressing these areas has the potential to transform the justice system and its services to meet the evolving demands of both individuals and businesses across the justice sector with an enduring impact.

It is recommended that Portugal might:

• Sustain its efforts on improving access to justice by continuing to invest in ICT/digital infrastructure and programmes to increase digital literacy and adopting an omni-channel approach to the delivery of justice services.

• Promote interoperability among various systems and consolidate the provision of legal and justice information when feasible.

• Strengthen institutional leadership to sustain ongoing digital transformation efforts through setting clear strategic priorities in legal documents or regulations, identifying a leading organisation to drive a data-driven approach to the modernisation of justice, and continuing to foster a shared understanding on data governance in the justice sector.

• Institutionalise GovTech Justiça to ensure its continued relevance and sustainability over time, together with a monitoring and evaluation mechanism.

• Develop a strategic vision to ensure a responsible and trustworthy use of AI in the justice sector.

• Take an iterative approach to engage stakeholders throughout the entire service cycle.

• Develop the Justice Hub as a central point for building strategic partnerships across the justice sector.

References

[1] OECD (2023), Recommendation on Access to Justice an People-Centred Justice Systems, https://legalinstruments.oecd.org/en/instruments/OECD-LEGAL-0498.

[2] OECD (2020), Justice Transformation in Portugal: Building on Successes and Challenges, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/184acf59-en.