The government plans to set up specialized immigration courts because AIMA cases are overloading the system.

The Portuguese government is preparing to establish specialized immigration and asylum courts units to distribute cases against immigration authority AIMA across the country, following a warning from the European Commission about the deteriorating performance of the administrative justice system. These proposals are part of a broader reform of Portugal's administrative and tax courts being discussed in the Council of Ministers today, Jornal de Notícias reports. In the current system, legal cases against AIMA (full name: Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum) are concentrated in the Lisbon Administrative Court. Today's reform will reduce pressure on Lisbon's overcrowded system by allowing immigrants to file cases with the administrative court covering their district of residence. The government also plans to establish specialized units dealing with migration, asylum and international protection issues. According to JN, changes to the laws regulating administrative and tax courts are expected to strengthen transparency and management of judges. These measures are part of the National Immigrant Integration Plan, which has been under preparation since the beginning of the year and is expected to be presented by the end of the summer. These steps followed a critical assessment from Brussels that showed Portugal had made no progress in improving the efficiency of its administrative courts. While the case completion rate decreased to 48% in 2024, the average time required to reach a decision increased to 861 days, that is, approximately two years and five months. The Immigration Technicians Union (STM) agrees that geographical distribution of cases could certainly ease the pressure on the Lisbon court. But the union argues that the government is concerned with the consequences of AIMA's difficulties rather than their causes. According to the union, the bulk of the cases stem from an institution whose decisions are "late, inadequately prepared and legally fragile". Creating specialized immigration courts “does not fix the source of the problem,” the STM explained. Without more resources, internal restructuring and better qualified staff at AIMA, there is a risk that judicial reforms will remain merely “cosmetic”. The union wants a dedicated professional career structure for immigration technicians, properly organized initial training and a greater operational capacity within the institution.