Portugal's justice minister has ordered the PJ to be audited from the inside
Rita Alarcão Júdice's audit examines how the Polícia Judiciária ran under Luís Neves, now interior minister. Chega's answer is that a government review cannot replace the parliamentary inquiry it has already requested.
Portugal’s justice ministry, under Rita Alarcão Júdice, has ordered an internal audit of the Polícia Judiciária. It covers how the force operated while Luís Neves ran it as national director, a post he held from 2018 until earlier this year, when he became interior minister.
Chega’s reply was that the move is both late and insufficient. The party argues Luís Montenegro has lost control of the affair, and that a review commissioned by the government cannot stand in for an independent investigation. It has already filed a formal request in parliament for a committee of inquiry into Neves’s years at the PJ, and it is asking whether the executive is trying to narrow or pre-empt that committee before it exists.
What was already on the table
This has been building for weeks. It started with building work on a property belonging to the minister, awarded to a contractor that also worked for the PJ, and widened to invoices issued to a company linked to Neves’s wife. In late July the prime minister said the minister was willing to answer MPs’ questions.
A committee of inquiry has to clear a plenary vote, and that is where the arithmetic matters. The Socialists have signalled they do not intend to bring the government down, but that position concerns the budget and does not bind them on an inquiry.
Two processes, two purposes
What emerges is a pair of parallel reviews doing different jobs. The ministry’s audit is administrative — it examines internal procedure and reports back to the government. A parliamentary inquiry takes evidence on the record, can compel documents, and ends in a report MPs vote on. Scope and deadlines for any committee are only fixed once parliament approves it, and filed requests are published on the Assembleia da República portal.
Photo: Vitor Oliveira / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
