Lisbon, May 5, 2025 (Lusa) - Court employees in Portugal on Monday denounced what they said were persistent network failures in the courts' computer system, making it difficult to work - a problem that the country's Ministry of Justice said was the result of a failure at the operator, on which the backup system also depends.

According to the Union of Judicial Employees (SFJ), several of its members reported complaints of slowness and blockages in the courts' IT system. 

The Institute for Financial Management and Justice Equipment (IGFEJ) confirmed this to Lusa, via the Ministry of Justice (MJ), stating that “a fault” had been identified at the operator MEO, which provides the courts’ data network, including the backup system.

The fault was identified last Friday and is "causing slow data traffic" - albeit without any associated loss of information, the IGFEJ said in a statement.

"The IGFEJ already has a procedure underway [within the scope of the] Recovery and Resilience Programme (RRP)" - under which European Union post-pandemic recovery funds are being spent - and this “is already in the contracting phase," it explains, adding that it “aims not to depend solely on a telecommunications operator for the normal circuit and the redundant [backup] circuit.” 

According to IGFEJ data, the new contract will make it possible to triple the network capacity for the 884 sites under the Ministry of Justice, and double the capacity for the two data centres.

"This new contract is not only essential for providing the network with redundancy and greater speed, but it is also essential for the investment made under the RRP in securitising the network, renewing network equipment (1,500 switches) and Wi-Fi access points (6,000 access points) to be effective and yield considerable gains," the IGFEJ states. "It will make it possible to avoid the network constraints experienced since Friday, as we depend on a fibre circuit from a single operator."

IMA/ARO // ARO.

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