Security Guards Fight for Equal Legal Protection Portugal

Portugal's private security guards are calling attention to a critical legal gap: when they face violence on the job, the state doesn't automatically pursue the attacker. Unlike police officers, firefighters, teachers, and other public servants, security personnel must personally file complaints to trigger criminal proceedings—a requirement labor representatives are now challenging as fundamentally unjust.

Why This Matters

• Legal asymmetry: Assaulting a public security officer, firefighter, teacher, or civil protection worker became subject to automatic state prosecution, but attacking a private security guard still requires the victim to file a personal complaint.

• Frontline exposure: Private security workers staff emergency rooms, transit hubs, courtrooms, and shopping centers—environments where they regularly intervene in violent situations.

• Union momentum: The Portugal Security Services Workers' Union (Sitese) has met with representatives from four parliamentary groups (PS, PSD, PCP, and Chega) to discuss amending the law, with preliminary indications of openness to correct the situation.

The Legal Double Standard

The Portugal Security Services Workers' Union (Sitese) has been lobbying Assembly of the Republic lawmakers to correct what union president José Filomeno describes as an "incomprehensible" distinction. Under current legislation enacted in March 2025, assaults on public security personnel—including police, prison guards, firefighters, and civil protection officers—trigger automatic public prosecution. The law explicitly includes school workers such as teachers and custodians in this protected category. Yet private security guards, despite performing similar protective functions in high-risk environments, remain excluded from this automatic prosecution framework.

This creates an unusual situation: a private security guard working in a hospital emergency department or courthouse faces different legal protections than a firefighter managing a crowd, even though both intervene in violent situations as part of their professional duties.

Where Private Guards Work in Portugal

Private security in Portugal is governed by Law 34/2013, which defines the sector as complementary to state security forces. Guards work in shopping centers, office buildings, hospitals, courthouses, and public transit stations. In hospital emergency departments, they help manage triage, intervene in family disputes, and occasionally physically restrain agitated individuals. Courthouse security staff enforce entry rules at metal-detector stations. Metro and bus stations across Porto and Lisbon employ private patrols to manage fare evasion and address disruptive behavior.

Despite operating in these high-tension environments, private security workers receive different legal treatment than public servants when assaulted. This disparity raises questions about fairness and worker protection in Portugal's security sector.

Why The Union is Pushing for Change

Filomeno emphasizes the core concern: "A security officer at a hospital safeguards healthcare professionals and patients, intervenes in violent incidents, and absorbs the same physical risks as a firefighter managing a crowd at an accident scene. Yet we treat one as a public servant worthy of automatic state protection and the other as a private-sector worker who must navigate the courts alone."

The distinction matters practically. When a private security guard is assaulted, they must visit a police station, formally lodge a complaint, and maintain it through investigation and trial. If they withdraw the complaint or stop pursuing it, the case terminates. This burden of proof rests entirely on the victim, unlike public servants whose cases are pursued automatically by state prosecutors.

Constitutional and Labor Arguments

The union argues that the current arrangement contradicts Article 13 of the Portugal Constitution, which enshrines equal treatment under the law. If volunteers and salaried civil servants in emergency services merit automatic prosecution when assaulted, the principle should extend to professionals whose job descriptions explicitly include physical intervention in dangerous settings.

Other unions representing security personnel, including the Unified Private Security Union (SUSP) and the Services, Doorkeeping, Surveillance, Cleaning, and Diverse Activities Workers' Union (STAD), have similarly called for statutory parity. These organizations have also pressed for implementation of the International Labour Organization's Convention 190 on violence and harassment in the workplace, which Portugal signed but has not yet fully incorporated into domestic labor codes.

What Parliamentary Support Looks Like

Sitese has completed meetings with representatives from the Socialist Party (PS), Social Democratic Party (PSD), Portuguese Communist Party (PCP), and Chega. According to the union, representatives from all four groups acknowledged the legal disparity and expressed openness to exploring amendments. However, no draft bill has yet been introduced to the Assembly, and the timing remains uncertain.

Parliamentary procedure typically requires committee review, plenary debate, and presidential promulgation—a process that spans several months even when broad consensus exists. Whether lawmakers prioritize this amendment before summer recess or defer it to the autumn session will depend on coalition priorities and legislative scheduling.

Potential Resistance

Opposition may emerge from budget hawks concerned about expanding the prosecution workload and from legal purists who maintain that private employees should not receive the same statutory protections as public servants. The Portugal Bar Association has not issued a public position on the matter, and the Ministry of Justice has not commented on pending legislative proposals.

What Change Would Mean

Elevating assaults on private security guards to public-crime status would produce several tangible effects:

• State-initiated prosecution: Prosecutors would open cases automatically without waiting for victim paperwork, potentially accelerating case processing.

• Consistent legal framework: Courts would apply a uniform approach to assaults across the security profession, whether public or private.

• Professional standing: Guards would have clearer legal backing when intervening in volatile situations, knowing the state considers assaults against them serious crimes.

For now, the legal treatment remains different for two professionals standing side by side in a hospital emergency room—one employed by the state, the other by a private contractor—each facing the same violence, but only one guaranteed automatic public prosecution.