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The Judges of the Fifth Section of the Lisbon Court of Appeals (TRL), Ricardo Cardoso and Artur Conceição, once again appointed journalist Felícia Cabrita as an assistant in the Operation Marqués process. Contrary to the position of Ivo Rosa, who, citing excerpts from the January-March edition of the Revista de Concorrência e Regulação, argued that “by allowing the journalist to enter the process as an assistant, the exercise of their work functions cannot be removed, assuming later, he will use the information collected there to disseminate it, as it is immanent to his activity ”, the magistrates appreciated that Felícia Cabrita had been admitted as an assistant, under the protection of e) of paragraph 1 of article 68 of the CPP, according to which “Assistant in the criminal process (…) any person can be constituted in crimes against peace and humanity, as well as in the crimes of influence peddling, personal favoritism practiced by an official, denial of justice, embezzlement, corruption, embezzlement , economic participation in business, abuse of power and fraud in obtaining or embezzling a subsidy or donation “.
In accordance with Investigation Process No. 122 / 13.8TELSB, of the aforementioned court, and by order of November 21, 2019, it was decided that “due to all of the above, due to lack of interest in acting and a true abuse of rights in the procedural position and functions of assistant, Felícia Cabrita, Luis Miguel Albano dos Santos Rosa and António Azenha are removed from the role of assistant in this case ”. In the dispatch this Tuesday, it appears that Ricardo Cardoso does not respond to the opinion of Ivo Rosa who had accused the aforementioned journalists, “globally and not individually and specifically, the lack of interest in acting and the abuse of rights” something that, for Ricardo Cardoso, “seems to have as a substrate, in addition, the understanding that the plaintiff, being a journalist, cannot be an assistant in the process”, adding that “freedom of the press also constitutes a guarantee of scrutiny of democratic institutions and their servants ”.
In October of last year, the journalist, who has more than 30 years of career, filed an appeal justifying the fact. In the first place, the professional explained that if the appeal is not raised “separately, immediately and with purely restored effect, because its retention would make it absolutely useless”, it would be violating articles 20, which enshrines the access to law. and effective jurisdictional protection, legal information and consultation for all citizens as well as adequate protection of the secret of justice – and 32nd – integrates the guarantees of the criminal process such as defense (such as recourse) and the notion that “the accused has the right to to choose a defender and be assisted by him in all acts of the process, the law specifying the cases and phases in which the assistance of a lawyer is mandatory ”- of the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic [CRP].
On the other hand, the journalist clarified that “the resolution appealed (…) removed the status of assistant to the Applicant, without attributing to him the practice of a specific act that violated the rules of conduct established in the CPP [Código de Processo Penal], which could be considered as an abuse of rights ”. The journalist also states that “the appealed resolution did not comply with the contradictory principle, to which I was forced,” since this principle “requires that all procedural interveners have the opportunity to be heard and to express their reasons before making any decision. decision that affects you ”. Finally, as plaintiff, he mentioned that “never and under any circumstances, during the investigation phase, did he reveal information, write any news or perform any act, from which it could be concluded that he had abused the assistant’s right” and concluded with the idea that the order ended up preventing him from “exercising his rights.”
The following month, the weekly SOL reported that Ivo Rosa considered “that the intervention of journalists was limited to collecting information. The decision comes after the Relação de Lisboa gave the judge a red card and considered that the attendees had the right to be present “and, indeed, Ivo Rosa reiterated that” there is even a deliberation by the Committee of Professional Journalists [CCPJ], issued on November 3, 2015, in which this commission declared “incompatible” the exercise of the profession of journalist with the ‘constitution as an assistant in the criminal process by which [se] develop the work ‘”. In fact, according to the information available on the CCPJ’s official website, it can be read that the journalistic topics explored that are related to processes in which journalists have the role of assistants end up compromising “independence, professional integrity and the duty of impartiality. “of the same. According to the CCPJ, in the appealed order of the TRL it can be seen that“ (…) there is no doubt that the intervention / performance of the assistants / journalists in the present case was limited to the collection of information contained in the process ”being Felícia Cabrita, in the judgment of the judge, one of the journalists accused of subverting her procedural figure and the position attributed to her.
In February of this year, in an interview with the weekly SOL, Felícia Cabrita stated: “They talk a lot about me in the wiretaps, which are not gratifying at all, but there is one thing that I really want to be: the ‘program’ that does not they will be able to cut. of their lives, ”even referring to the then Attorney General Fernando José de Matos Pinto Monteiro. But it is also important to note that magistrate Ricardo Cardoso once again opposes Judge Ivo Rosa: in February 2019, Cardoso accused the judge of violating “democratic legality” after violating “the flagrant limit of jurisdiction of the investigating judge”. such as the “autonomy of the Public Ministry” during the investigation phase of the process. After this strong censure by the magistrate of the Central Criminal Investigation Court, Ricardo Cardoso did not forget the reference to the quote “When the press does not speak, the people do not speak. The press is not silent. Shut up people ”, by the English poet William Blake, in the order in question, to defend the importance of preserving freedom of the press and free access to information.
It is recalled that at the center of the investigation of Operation Marqués are the more than 23 million euros raised by Carlos Santos Silva, a childhood friend of José Sócrates, in Switzerland, and transferred to Portugal – in 2004 and in the period between 2010 and 2011 – a part of the money that was declared, at the tax level, by Santos Silva, under the Exceptional Tax Regularization Regimes I and II.
It is important to note that, on behalf of Socrates, the direct receipt of quantities of illicit origin was not detected. However, the Public Ministry believes that the accounts created by Santos Silva in offshore names are the product of the corruption of his childhood friend for various reasons, such as the fact that the former prime minister paid vacations, current expenses, a house in Paris and even make loans to friends very easily. Denying that he is the owner of the more than 23 million euros, the former Undersecretary of State of the Ministry of the Environment and Minister of the Environment and Spatial Planning, under the government of António Guterres, explained that he had received loans from Santos Silva although never managed to reveal its exact value.
It all started on November 21, 2014, when José Sócrates was detained by agents of the Tax and Customs Authority upon his arrival at Portela airport, upon his return from Paris. After three years, in March 2017, the lawsuit had 28 defendants, 19 natural persons and 9 legal persons. The list of defendants includes names such as José Sócrates – he was in preventive prison for nine months and is accused of the crimes of passive corruption of a politician, qualified tax fraud, money laundering and falsification of documents – João Perna – driver of the former prime minister , who performed the function of “bridge” between Carlos Santos Silva and the then governor, transporting envelopes with money and also receiving amounts in their bank accounts. He was accused of the crimes of money laundering and possession of a prohibited weapon – and Gonçalo Trindade Ferreira – a lawyer who worked with Carlos Santos Silva and was accused of the crimes of money laundering and falsification of documents.
