Paxlegal, Liberty Legal, RME Legal and Fieldfisher Portugal are the founding firms.
Four law firms have joined forces in a consortium to defend immigrants affected by changes to the Immigration Law and the Nationality Law: Paxlegal, Liberty Legal, RME Legal, and Fieldfisher Portugal. “At a certain point, we realized there was an alignment between several firms, obviously with the same concerns. The clients have the same problems, and so we decided to join forces,” lawyer André Miranda told media .
At least four legal initiatives are being planned together, explains the lawyer. The first is to contact the Ombudsman. Then, actions in administrative courts are being considered, "whether actions to recognize the rights of citizens and immigrants, or actions, eventually, so that those who have already suffered losses and damages can be compensated for the malfunctioning of Portuguese state services."
The third idea under study, related to investors, is to invoke international investment arbitration conventions in which Portugal participates. Finally, an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights is also being considered. “Obviously, due to the failures in the functioning of public services and the violation of the fundamental rights of citizens residing in Portugal,” emphasizes André Miranda.
In the lawyer's view, the union of the firms gives more strength to this initiative. "Nothing has ever been done, in collective terms, that brought together so many firms at the same time, and we are seeing significant participation. Therefore, people share the same ideas, understand the situation, and realize that a union of lawyers can obviously achieve more effective and meaningful results," he says.
At the same time, he notes that the goal "is not to monopolize all initiatives, but only to aggregate them." Besides the four offices, others have already expressed interest in joining the consortium. "The problem is common to all ," he concludes.
"The population still hasn't realized the real impact."
André Miranda understands that the country, in general, has not grasped the gravity of the situation. "There is a great deal of awareness-raising work that needs to be done, and we understand that Portuguese citizens, and ultimately the population, have not yet realized the real impact of the problems we are experiencing with immigration services ," he explains.
The lawyer argues that the political debate has, in a way, shaped the issue, but has sidelined the law and human rights. "There needs to be a greater public and social awareness among the Portuguese people of the importance of the foreign population that comes to Portugal with different objectives (...) we are talking about human rights ," he emphasizes.
In the professional's view, the malfunctioning of the Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum (AIMA) affects the country's "reputation." "There is a whole group of people, from the richest to the poorest, from the most distinguished to the most undistinguished, all of them are harmed by the malfunctioning and, therefore, this generates a reputational problem for the Portuguese State ," he argued.
As an example, he cited delays at AIMA and the slow processing of nationality applications. " A simple administrative regularization procedure is not processed in a timely manner, and therefore, the law that provides for a 90-day deadline, in practice, means years. It is incomprehensible in the 21st century, in a state that calls itself modern, that wants to implement artificial intelligence in all its public services, wants to make building licensing decisions in a few days and then takes years to issue a simple residence permit," he emphasizes.
These measures follow legislative changes that have made immigration more rigid and increased the timeframes for obtaining nationality, in order to correct an "ideological bias in the law . " The government's objective is to limit immigration, in what they call "regulating immigration," and to make access to nationality more difficult. Both changes are already in effect, after back-and-forth debates in Parliament and the Constitutional Court.