How many Police convicted of serious crimes remain in service? How many were they banished for undergoing convictions and for what crimes? What disciplinary sanctions were decreed? Which reasoning of the decisions of General Inspectorate of Internal Administration (I GO)?
All these questions, which the DN had already raised and about which there was no public record, may finally get an answer.
In unprecedented measurethe Minister of the Interior, Jose Luis Carneirodecided to order the IGAI, managed since 2019 by Judge Anabela Cabral Ferreirato publish all information related to your decisionsas well as detailed statistics on the offenses committed by police officers and their convictions regarding the facts of disciplinary proceedings.
on a transmission to which the DN had accessJosé Luís Carneiro stipulates that, in order to protect “the principles and rules relating to the protection of secrets, the privacy of private and family life and the processing of personal data”, the IGAI must “publish in full on its official website on the Internet , all disciplinary decisions issued in disciplinary proceedings instructed by them”, and this information must be made public from 1 January 2022.
Established in 1996 to oversee the police forces under the Ministry of the Interior (MAI), the IGAI will also be required from the above date to provide on its website “statistical information related to the activity carried out by it in terms of disciplinary”.
These statistics, mainly those related to criminal cases, will contain details that had never been released before and that the Minister considered “relevant statistical information”:
1. Number of criminal cases pending before the Public Prosecution Service or the court
in connection with disciplinary proceedings (per year and MAI entities);
2. Number of persons convicted in criminal cases related to cases
disciplinary (by years and MAI entities);
3. Number and types of disciplinary violations (by years and MAI entities, according
with the constant enumeration of the various disciplinary regimes);
4. Number and types of offenses related to disciplinary offenses (e.g
year and MAI entities, according to the catalog in the Criminal Code and
of extravagant criminal law);
5. Number and types of disciplinary sanctions (per year and MAI entities);
6. Number and types of criminal sanctions related to disciplinary proceedings (by year and MAI entities);
7. Number and types of additional disciplinary sanctions (per year and MAI entities);
8. Number and Types of Additional Criminal Sanctions Related to Cases
disciplinary (by years and MAI entities);
9. Number and types of precautionary disciplinary measures (by year and MAI entities);
10. Number and types of criminal coercive measures related to cases
disciplinary (by years and MAI entities);
11. Number of cases filed (per year and MAI entities), as well as the
reasons for the archiving in question.
In addition to wanting all decisions to be made public, the Home Secretary also requires the IGAI to publish the “procedural resolution rate of disciplinary proceedings (by year and MAI entities), as well as the duration of each trial with “time intervals”.
In addition to the lack of data on criminal offenses, especially those more serious in the performance of their duties (the case of the Alfragide / Cova da Moura Police Station in connection with which convicted police officers were not subjected to disciplinary punishment), the IGAI also does not publish or facilitate access to individual disciplinary proceedings, which the law stipulates is public from the indictment or filing. It just puts some, rare, online, without realizing the criteria.
summoned to parliament to answer questions from deputies about hate speech in the security forces (following the publication of reports by the Investigative Journalism Consortium on comments and posts by police officers in closed groups on social networks), José Luís Carneiro was also asked by deputies about this issue.
In the opening lines of the message, José Luís Carneiro shouts “de democratic-participatory constitutional principles and justice”, as well as “the principle of administrative transparencywith reflections on the principles of the administration’s cooperation with individuals and the participation of individuals in the management of the administration”.
He recalls that these principles “include that the administration communicates to citizens the meaning of its decisions, their understanding and acceptance by the governed, the citizens’ confidence in the impartiality of the administration and, as a last resort, the legitimization of administrative activities”.
emphasizes that “the right of access to procedural information by stakeholders and the right of access to administrative information, including by non-stakeholders fundamental rights of the administered, similar to the rights, freedoms and warrantiesimplemented in the “Act on Access to Administrative Documents”.
Finally, it gives the example of Constitutional Court, the Supreme Court, the Supreme Administrative Court and the Court of Auditors, a national level; by Court of Justice of the European Union and the European Court of Human Rightsat the international level, who “in an exercise of responsibility for judicial activities, a long tradition of publishing court decisions of various kinds on its websites”.
Along the same lines, José Luís Carneiro notes, “the The Attorney General’s Office publishes on its website the decisions of the Supreme Court of the Public Prosecution Service in disciplinary matters”.
It is necessary to ensure “the application, monitoring and punishment of attitudes [que dentro das polícias] violate fundamental values”, because “we are talking about what is one of the fundamental principles of the rule of law – the function of security, which is one of the first objectives of the political contract between citizens and the state,” the Interior Minister had said to Administration at the aforementioned parliamentary hearing.
It has now taken steps to monitor state action in relation to this conduct.
Source: DN
