Legislative amendment on child sexual abuse ready by “halfway through the year”

The justice minister said on Tuesday that a proposal for an amendment to the law on child sexual abuse will be presented in the first half of this year, denying any causal relationship to the controversy surrounding the Catholic Church.

Asked by Lusa about the suggestion launched by the Independent Commission for the Study of Child Sexual Abuse in the Portuguese Catholic Church that the statute of limitations for crimes of sexual abuse be increased until the victim is 30 years old, Catarina Sarmento e Castro said that an amendment to the law “already considered” and “being worked on” by the government.

“We should not legislate for the specific case. I would like to emphasize that. This amendment is being worked on”the minister insisted, revealing that the Ministry of Justice’s proposal goes in the direction of “don’t change the limitation periods, but change the date on which these periods start running”without giving further details.

The minister acknowledged that if the Justice Department’s proposal on this amendment is a subject that “will be discussed at the government level”, a proposal will “definitely” appear before the middle of this year.

“We are working on it. The proposal has been drawn up. It is a matter of entering the legislative circuit”he noted, in reference to the approval process that will have to go through the Assembly of the Republic.

In a written response to Lusa, the Ministry of Justice had already admitted that “given the legal plan adopted at the level of the European Union, it is necessary to make some adjustments to the current internal legislation in order to comply with directives of the European Commission for cases against sexual abuse, sexual exploitation of children and child pornography”.

“A series of legislative improvements are already underway that will make it possible to strengthen the internal legal framework and strengthen the protection of victims of this type of crime”he adds.

The Independent Commission has identified 4,815 victims since taking office in January 2022. This committee, coordinated by Pedro Strecht, has sent 25 cases to the Public Prosecution Service.