Brazilian lawyers working in Portugal spent months in meetings, making demands and even carrying out of a protest in early April in front of one of the Agency for Integration, Migrations and Asylum (AIMA) stores in Lisbon, asking for an end to the limitation of just ten passwords per day for professionals. Now, one of these steps has been formalized: a communication channel was created between the Bar Association (OA) and AIMA.
“This initiative represents our continuous search for dialogue, respect and defense of the prerogatives of the law, values that we consider essential for strengthening justice and citizenship”, he explains to DN Brazil Brazilian lawyer Elaine Linhares, one of the leaders of the movement.
In the form available in the reserved area for professionals, it is possible to “leave relevant information about the aspects mentioned. It is requested that the situation is described succinctly and specific elements are indicated (process number, location, etc.), in order to allow AIMA to correctly identify the facts reported”, informs OA in a statement.
“All interested lawyers can access the Bar Association website with their professional credentials and, through this channel, report the situations and challenges faced in the practice of law“, adds the professional. In addition to Elaine, the initiative was also led by lawyers Catarina Zuccaro and Patrícia Viana.
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“The Bar Association considers that institutional cooperation is one of its objectives, in this case for the significant improvement of public services, always having as a starting point the collection of contributions from lawyersin order to assert their rights in the practice of law, guaranteeing effective access for citizens to these services”, highlights the OA in the statement.
Throughout the negotiations, which began in April, the professionals highlighted the importance of maintaining “a constant dialogue with public administrations, especially with AIMA”. The matter was also addressed in an open council at the OA headquarters, convened by president João Massano in July this year.
With more than 100 participants, it was possible to present the main demands and problems faced by lawyers. The AIMA theme was one of the most cited, both by professionals from Brazil and Portugal.
Fight for passwords
Until now, lawyers did not have a direct communication channel with the agency. For face-to-face services, you must arrive at the stores early in the morning. In the case of Anjos, in Lisbon, there are 20 vacancies per day, and each professional can consult only three processes. THE DN / DN Brazil was there recently and checked that the passwords were exhausted before 8:30 am.
In some cases, the search for information is in vain, as not all databases are unified — that is, attendants do not have access to all processes. In certain stores, only two or three passwords are available daily, with the same limitation of three processes per query.
amanda.lima@dn.pt