Communiqué of the Council of Ministers of September 20, 2018
MIL OSI-C. Mediterranean Region: Portugal
1. The Council of Ministers approved five diplomas in the scope of administrative and tax justice reform, aiming at the modernization and rationalization of the system:
– The draft law amending the Statute of Administrative and Tax Courts was approved. In a logic of streamlining procedures and increasing the efficiency and speed of the system, the proposed intervention is based on three key elements: the specialization of the courts of first instance; the establishment of a new management model for administrative and tax courts; and reviewing the model of court support offices;
– A proposal for a law amending procedural rules in administrative and fiscal jurisdiction was also adopted. The compulsory electronic filing of judicial proceedings in the administrative and fiscal jurisdiction and several other measures of simplification and procedural aggregation, especially at the level of the tax process, are foreseen;
– By decree-law, teams of judicial magistrates whose task is to recover pending cases in administrative and tax courts, seeking, in a short period of time, to improve the quality of the system's response; with the same objective, this law also establishes incentives for the abandonment of proceedings, the review of tax acts and the use of arbitration;
– The decree-law amending the Procedural Costs Regulation was approved, with the purpose of updating and adapting the legal provisions related to the administrative and tax proceedings. The proposed changes include a reduction in the rate of fairness due to the parties in administrative proceedings where the parties fill out forms established for the production of procedural documents in order to shorten the duration of proceedings, also reducing procedural costs and reinforcing good administration of justice;
– The bill was approved that establishes the application of the tax enforcement process to the coercive collection of costs, fines, fines and other amounts collected in court proceedings. The aim is to increase the efficiency of the collection of amounts owed to the State, with significant functional gains and maintaining the guarantee of effective judicial protection of debtors.
2. The National Irrigation Program (PNRegadios) was approved to expand, rehabilitate and modernize existing irrigation systems and to create new irrigated areas with the objective of promoting irrigation and other collective infrastructure.
PNRegadios makes it possible to increase the resilience and robustness of agricultural systems, also contributing to adaptation to climate change, as well as to the settlement of populations, particularly in areas weakened by the dynamics of depopulation.
To manage the projects covered by the financing agreements between the Portuguese Republic, the European Investment Bank and the Development Bank of the Council of Europe, for a total amount of 560 million euros, a project group is created called the Implementation Unit from the program.
In line with the principles of subsidiarity, administrative decentralization and local self-government, the transfer of competences is now established in the areas of civil protection, animal protection and health and food safety, housing and health care structures. citizen.
The approved skills transfer process is gradual, in line with what the Decentralization Framework Law already provides for, and local authorities can take over the new competencies in a phased way until 2021.
After a consensual process with the National Association of Portuguese Municipalities and with the National Association of Parishes, this second package of diplomas covers the following areas:
– In civil protection, the institutional and operational framework is defined in the autarchic scope, establishes the organization of municipal civil protection services and creates the municipal operational coordination center and the municipal civil protection coordinator;
– in the area of animal health and food safety, the municipalities will be empowered to exercise powers over livestock, veterinary and food safety;
– in the housing, transfer of the competences related to the management of programs to support urban rental and rehabilitation, as well as to the ownership and management of the real estate destined to social housing that integrate the housing stock of the State administration;
– At the level of citizen service, the municipalities are entrusted with the installation and management skills of Citizen Stores and Citizen Spaces, Employee Support Offices and Local Migrant Support Centers and Integration Centers, and to the parishes the competences for the installation and management of Citizen Spaces.
4. The bill was approved authorizing the Government to establish the norms for the realization of Census 2021, which includes the 16th General Census of Population and the 6th General Census of Housing. The diploma defines responsibilities for its implementation and establishes specific arrangements to ensure the financial and human resources required for its success in the established ways and timetables.
The designation, direction and execution of Censuses 2021 is ensured by INE, with municipal councils responsible for organizing, coordinating and controlling the registration tasks in the area of jurisdiction of the respective municipality. The parish councils, in turn, cooperate with the services of the respective town hall in the execution of the operations.
The involvement and cooperation of local authorities will be decisive for the success of the Census 2021, due to its proximity to the population and the possibility of providing the means and the support infrastructures necessary to carry out the operation. A pilot survey will be conducted in 2020 to test the operation.
5. The motion for a resolution on the Extradition Treaty between the Portuguese Republic and the Eastern Republic of Uruguay, signed in Lisbon on 25 October 2017, was approved.
The purpose of the Treaty is to strengthen bilateral cooperation with Uruguay in the judicial field in order to enable the extradition of persons for criminal prosecution or for the execution of a custodial sentence.
6. The Government shall submit to the Assembly of the Republic motions for resolutions approving the Third and Fourth Additional Protocols to the European Convention on Extradition.
The two Protocols which are now ratified are broadly complementary and modernized to certain provisions of that Convention, adopted in 1957, bearing in mind the development of international judicial cooperation in criminal matters with a view to speeding up extradition procedures.
Portugal thus completes the ratification of all the Council of Europe's specific legal instruments on extradition.
7. The Government appointed the members of the new board of directors of the Western Hospital Center. Francisco de Oliveira and Maria de Lurdes dos Santos Luís Ponciano respectively assume the positions of president and executive vowels of that Hospital Center, which succeeded to the Hospital Center of the West.
EDITOR'S NOTE: This article is a translation. Please accept our apologies should the grammar and / or sentence structure not be perfect.