The Bar Association considered this Wednesday, November 5, inadmissible that the court denied the official lawyer assigned to José Sócrates the 48-hour period to consult the case, a decision it classified as a “serious violation of the right to defense”.
“The Order considers it unacceptable that ‘haste’ takes precedence over justice, and repudiates any judicial practice that transforms the right to defense into a mere formality”writes the chairman, João Massano, in a statement.
At issue is a decision by the president of the panel of judges in the Operation Marquês case, who denied, on Tuesday, a request from the official lawyer José Ramos, who asked for 48 hours to consult the process.
The request was rejected by judge Susana Seca on the grounds that Operation Marquês is an urgent process and that the deadline would be “manifestly insufficient” to get to know the case.
“The Order cannot fail to express its protest over this serious violation of the right to defense and the concomitant denial of an elementary right of a lawyer to be informed of the matter whose defense he is responsible for”adds the president of the Bar Association (OA).
Regretting that similar situations are becoming more and more frequent, the Order emphasizes that “there are insurmountable lines” in guaranteeing procedural speed and that the “the implementation of justice is not compatible with procedures that sacrifice fundamental rights in the name of supposed efficiency”.
The refusal to grant the minimum amount of time necessary for the unofficial defender to prepare his intervention not only disrespects the constitutional principle of adversarial proceedings and equality of arms, but also undermines the dignity of the practice of law and the Rule of Law itself”, he adds.
The unofficial lawyer José Ramos was appointed to represent José Sócrates in Operation Marquês, after the lawyer who accompanied the former prime minister since he was detained in November 2014, resigned from his mandate on Tuesday.
Pedro Delille justified the decision with “deontological reasons” and speaking of a “mock trial”.