The “en bloc” transition from SEF inspectors to the Judicial Police (PJ), as confirmed yesterday by the Minister of the Interior, José Luís Carneiro, at the end of the Council of Ministers, will continue to be suspended in practice. The national director of the PJ, Luís Neves, who had seen this measure as “an advantage for the criminal investigation, for the judicial process and for the country”, will have to wait.
The PJ will employ some 600 inspectors, but for now, just over a dozen elements of the SEF’s detective division will transfer immediately to the National Counterterrorism Unit (UNCT), where hundreds are piling up. aid and illegal immigration and human trafficking that were investigated by the SEF and which the prosecution began to delegate to the PJ.
SEF inspectors and administrative staff are distributed by the PJ, GNR, PSP, SSI, IRN, Agency for Migration and AT.
The vast majority of these professionals from the Carreira de Investigação e Inspecção (CIF) will be distributed among six other entities (with the PJ there are seven): about 400 will still be at the border control of airports and ports at the GNR and the PSP, made for one year renewable by two; nearly 100 will be assigned to the new Borders and Aliens Coordination Unit of the Internal Security System (SSI), which will manage the SEF databases and coordinate information sharing; and the rest can still be placed with the Institute of Registries and Notaries (IRN), with the new Portuguese Agency for Minorities, Migrations and Asylum (APMA), officially created yesterday in the Council of Ministers, and even the biggest surprise , with the Tax and Customs Administration (AT). This last destination was another solution found mainly for senior Coordinating Inspectors (at the top of the career) of the SEF, closer to retirement age, whose placement in the PJ would be more complicated as the number significantly exceeds that of the Judiciaria itself.
According to the Annual Internal Security Report, the SEF has 26 inspectors in this category and the PJ has only six. This assignment could also be open to SEF’s 32 Coordinating Inspectors (32) and Chief Inspectors (97). In total, the SEF with the inspectors (778) has 933 elements of the Criminal Investigation Career, but the estimate of those who may become available will be around 300.
With the separation of the police and administrative powers from the SEF envisaged in the government program since 2019 and the extinction of this police force announced by the ex-minister Eduardo Cabrita since April 2021 and placed in decree law in November of that year, after two postponements, will the measures approved by the Council of Ministers still have six months of “operationalisation” or “transition”, according to José Luís Carneiro.
New office also for minorities
In a real time trial, both this diploma, which determines the conditions for the transition of inspectors to the PJ, and that for the creation of the APMMA were modified during the Council of Ministers itself. Union sources from the SEF and PJ, who would not comment until the closing time of this edition, admitted they were not aware of the final version of the documents. Negotiations between the Minister of Internal Administration and the SEF unions went into the night, but José Luís Carneiro stated that an agreement had been reached on “positional equivalence and the preservation of the location of the performance of functions”.
About APMMA – which now includes “Minorities” in its designation – this will be an institution equivalent to a public company. As the DN had already reported, the APMA board of directors – a chairman and two members – will be given public manager status, whose salaries could exceed 25 to 56% of the salaries of top police chiefs, if filed by the maximum levels. Added to this are “honours”, provided for in the status of government manager and even a “monthly allowance” for entertainment expenses that can amount to 40% of salaries.
One name that has been suggested as a likely president is José Leitão, Socialist Lisbon municipal deputy and a specialist in this field, who was the High Commissioner for Immigration and Ethnic Minorities. He has published several works on immigration, the fight against racism and racial discrimination.
The APMMA will be tasked with “implementing government policies in the field of migration and asylum, namely regularizing the entry and residence of foreign citizens in the national territory, issuing opinions on visa applications, asylum and the settlement of refugees , as well as as a participant in the implementation of the international cooperation policy of the Portuguese State in the field of migration and asylum”. It will have 680 administrative staff for all these functions related to migration flows, with the exception of the renewal of residence permits, for which the IRN is responsible. The Minister of Parliamentary Affairs, Ana Catarina Mendes, later stated that the ongoing effort “is to speed up the authorization processes and also speed up the reception”, namely by strengthening the digitization of services.
According to the minister, with the approval of the APMMA there will be a separation between the police and the aspect of reception and integration. “This new office will integrate the High Commission for Migration, aiming to respond to the different challenges of inclusion and integration of migrants in Portugal,” he added.
Source: DN
