“As long as AIMA [Agency for Migration, Integration and Asylum] can […] inform the court that ‘we have [hypothetically] scheduled 12,000 interviews, please dismiss the case’, and we currently lack a clear count of how many cases remain pending from people who need a response,” lamented the judge secretary of the Superior Council of Administrative and Tax Courts (CSTAF) at a meeting with journalists in Lisbon.
Foreign citizens, including asylum seekers, have filed summonses for protection, freedoms and guarantees to compel AIMA to schedule an interview as part of their application to remain in the country. According to Eliana de Almeida Pinto, more than 50,000 cases are involved.
‘Among those [summonses], many are unnecessary because we have scheduled the interviews but we have not updated that information,’ added the magistrate, pointing to the possible creation of a database that AIMA and TACL could consult as a possible solution, a project that does not depend on the courts.
The TACL is the only court with territorial jurisdiction to hear requests for summonses to AIMA and currently has six of its 35 judges assigned exclusively to these cases, which increased exponentially in 2024 after the Agency replaced the former Foreigners and Borders Service (SEF).
Eliana de Almeida Pinto emphasised that, despite these exceptional cases, the TACL achieved a resolution rate of 98% in 2024, compared to the lower rate of less than 30% reported by the Directorate-General for Justice Policy.
Platform with LUSA
