Portugal's Criminal Investigation Department Faces Reckoning Over Decade-Long Case Delays

Portugal's Central Department for Criminal Investigation and Action has internally resolved most operational failures flagged by a damning oversight report, according to director Rui Cardoso—though systemic bottlenecks tied to international cooperation and police resourcing remain unresolved. The admission comes as lawmakers unanimously approved a parliamentary hearing to scrutinize the department's chronic delays and mounting backlog, signaling a rare cross-party consensus on the severity of dysfunction at the heart of Portugal's justice system.

Why This Matters

• Case backlogs dropped 20% in 2025 despite a 20% surge in incoming investigations, but long-pending files (pre-2023) fell 56%.

• High-profile corruption probes—including the Operação Marquês and Monte Branco cases—have languished for over a decade under the same prosecutor.

• Parliamentary oversight intensifies: Attorney General Amadeu Guerra will face lawmakers in an urgent session following a 1,870% spike in inquiries pending five years or longer nationwide since 2015.

Internal Fixes Versus Structural Roadblocks

Cardoso, who assumed leadership of the Departamento Central de Investigação e Ação Penal (DCIAP) in November 2024, told reporters this week that the majority of organizational deficiencies cited in a March 2025 inspection—covering operations through October 2024—had been corrected before the document even circulated within the Portugal Public Prosecutor's Office. "When I took office, I identified those issues immediately," he said, adding that internal reforms have continued since.

Yet the director acknowledged that certain obstacles lie beyond his department's control. Cooperation with the Portugal Judicial Police and foreign counterparts often stalls cases, forcing DCIAP magistrates to assume investigative duties typically handled by detectives. "In many cases, prosecutors become police officers, analysts—they do everything," Cardoso explained. "That allows some investigations to move forward to trial, but we cannot sustain that model across the entire caseload."

The inspection report, authored by three senior evaluators and made public in late April 2026, painted a grimmer picture: 42% of pending files in the department's sixth section—overseen by prosecutor Rosário Teixeira—were directly managed by Teixeira himself, with an average wait time of three years and seven months. Certain inquiries, including the Monte Branco financial crime probe launched in June 2011, had exceeded 13 years without closure.

What the Numbers Reveal

Cardoso highlighted modest progress: overall pending cases at DCIAP fell 20% in 2025, while files lingering beyond eight months declined 30%. Investigations dating to 2023 or earlier saw a 56% reduction. These improvements came despite a 20% jump in new filings over the same period, suggesting improved throughput rather than a lighter workload.

Nationally, however, the crisis deepens. Data from the Números da Justiça platform—launched in March 2026 to track judicial performance—show that inquiries pending more than five years surged from 611 in 2015 to 12,039 in 2024, an increase of nearly 1,900%. By 2023, the Portugal Public Prosecutor's Office was carrying over 300,000 open inquiries across all divisions.

José Góis, a retired deputy prosecutor general who coordinates a working group on criminal procedure reform, warned that legislative improvements alone cannot resolve the paralysis. "We can draft beautiful, well-crafted laws," he said at a public presentation, "but without technical resources and human capital to enforce them, they are meaningless."

Why the Sixth Section Faces Scrutiny

The inspection report singled out Teixeira's unit for what it termed a "speculative" investigative approach, where cases remain open in anticipation of breakthroughs from unrelated probes or belated evidence. Of 271 pending files in the section, 114 were assigned to Teixeira personally, creating a concentration inspectors described as a driver of "systematic deadline overruns and imbalanced workload distribution."

The Monte Branco case—a sprawling money-laundering inquiry—was cited as emblematic: nearly 14 years old, spanning 59 volumes, and still awaiting a formal closure order. Inspectors faulted an "excessive and unjustified expansion" of the probe's scope to encompass tangentially related allegations.

Another flashpoint, the Operação Marquês, which targeted former officials including ex-Prime Minister José Sócrates, has dragged on for over a decade. Inspectors attributed delays partly to aggressive litigation tactics by defendants, but also to internal drift—a pattern they warned risks statute-of-limitations expirations.

Impact on Residents and Legal Certainty

For residents of Portugal—whether citizens, expats, or business operators—the delays ripple outward. Prolonged inquiries freeze asset seizures, stall civil litigation dependent on criminal outcomes, and erode trust in institutional accountability. Entrepreneurs report hesitancy among foreign partners when compliance or corruption risks remain unresolved for years, complicating cross-border investment.

The report also exposed operational primitiveness: DCIAP is the only unit within the Portugal Public Prosecutor's Office that does not use the Citius electronic case management system, relying instead on paper files and manual tracking. Digitizers are insufficient and obsolete; in one instance, evidence seized in June 2021 remained unscanned and unanalyzed by January 2025. The department lacks a formal internal regulation, centralized evidence processing, or a dedicated anti-money-laundering section.

Inspectors recommended that the Conselho Superior do Ministério Público and the Attorney General formally petition lawmakers and the executive for emergency funding to expand staffing, modernize IT infrastructure, and secure adequate workspace. As of now, the department operates out of cramped, outdated facilities with too few judicial officers, administrative staff, and technical specialists.

Parliamentary Intervention Looms

The Assembleia da República's Committee on Constitutional Affairs, Rights, Freedoms and Guarantees voted unanimously on May 1, 2026, to summon Attorney General Amadeu Guerra for an urgent hearing. The motion, tabled by the Iniciativa Liberal party and backed by PSD, PS, Chega, Livre, CDS-PP, and Bloco de Esquerda, acknowledges the sensitivity of breaching separation-of-powers norms but argues that institutional dysfunction justifies parliamentary scrutiny.

"The gravity and institutional relevance of these facts, plus the erosion of citizen confidence, demand oversight," the motion states. "We request only the Public Prosecutor's contribution to understanding these problems."

Iniciativa Liberal emphasized that the 1,870% increase in long-pending cases since 2015 reflects not merely volume or complexity, but "fragilities in internal organization, procedural handling, available technology, information flows, and effective oversight of case management."

Guerra, who previously led DCIAP before ascending to the top prosecutorial role, is expected to address whether resource shortfalls, managerial missteps, or structural legal constraints bear primary responsibility for the backlog—and what legislative or budgetary remedies are feasible.

What Comes Next

Cardoso insists the trajectory is positive, even if unsatisfying. "The work is being done with everyone's effort," he said. "We are not at a point that leaves me satisfied, naturally, but there is a path being forged in a very positive direction."

Still, the director's caveat—that problems extending beyond DCIAP's walls "persist"—hints at entrenched challenges. Without reinforced police cooperation, faster international legal assistance, and updated digital tools, even the most efficient internal reforms may only delay, not resolve, the crisis.

For Portugal, the stakes are tangible: unresolved high-profile cases become symbols of impunity, deterring whistleblowers and emboldening bad actors. Meanwhile, everyday residents caught in the inquiry pipeline—whether as complainants, witnesses, or suspects—face indefinite limbo, unable to close chapters on allegations that may never reach a courtroom.

The upcoming parliamentary hearing, coupled with the inspection's stark recommendations, may finally catalyze the budgetary and structural interventions that prosecutors have requested for years. Whether Portugal's legislative and executive branches will act decisively, however, remains an open question—one that Cardoso and his understaffed team cannot answer alone.