Programme

Theme: The phenomenon of corruption in Portugal and the National Anti-Corruption Strategy: dilemmas and challenges

The Programme of Interdisciplinary Meetings for the year 2021 is presented below (with in-person and online sessions), which seeks to promote a set of debates on different themes. In this first year, the seminar series, under the theme "The phenomenon of corruption in Portugal and the National Anti-Corruption Strategy: dilemmas and challenges", has a special focus on the reflection around the measures provided in the National Anti-Corruption Strategy.

1. Portugal, a country of Corruption?
9 September 2021 - Thursday - 17h00-19h00 (GMT+1) | Online event
Speaker(s):
- Mariana Oliveira - Journalist from Público
- Rita Figueiras - Portuguese Catholic University
- Rui Cardoso - Public Prosecutor
Comments: Manuel Carvalho da Silva (COLABOR - Collaborative Laboratory for Labour, Employment and Social Protection) | Moderator: Conceição Gomes (OPJ/CES/UC)
This topic constitutes an important challenge to reflection on the phenomenon of corruption among us. Firstly, as we do not know the real criminality, but only the registered criminality, i.e., the criminality that somehow comes to the knowledge of the formal control bodies and in relation to which a legal action is opened, perceptions gain relevance and are often confused in the discourse and in the reflection with real criminality. Therefore, it is important to deconstruct this association by reflecting, on the one hand, on the factors that must be taken into account when approaching real criminality and, on the other hand, on those that most contribute to the formation of perceptions in this field. Secondly, we consider it equally important to revisit the policies and legal, organisational or other measures in this field, carried out in the recent past, and to reflect on the reasons why they might not have been efficient. Recovering this memory is important to help avoid repeating the wrong or ineffective paths of the past.

2. Prevention, Transparency and Accountability: from law to institutional practices against corruption
14 October 2021 - Thursday - 15h00-17h00 (GMT+1) | Online event
Speakers:
- José Mouraz Lopes – Counselor Judge, Audit Office
- Rui Patrício – Lawyer, FDUNL, Co-Executive Director of the OPCR
- Susana Coroado – President of Transparency International Portugal
Comentator: Marina Pimentel – Rádio Renascença | Moderation: João Paulo Dias - OPJ/CES/UC
Facing the problem of corruption today clearly implies taking concrete public and private measures of preventive nature. Allied to the principles of transparency and accountability, the responses that involve the concrete public policies that should be developed, on the one hand, and the compliance requirements directed mainly to private entities, on the other hand, assume themselves as essential challenges on which it is important to reflect.

3. Prosecuting Corruption and the Courts: the (in)efficiency of the fight against corruption
11 November 2021 - Thursday - 15h00-17h00 (GMT) | Online event
The merits, of public policies and of the legal framework for the prevention and repression of corruption, will be greatly weakened without an efficient and effective justice system. If, upstream, there is unanimity at the time of general and abstract enunciation of the designs to fight corruption, downstream, however, there is a growing dissensus on the judicial system's capacity to deal with and resolve the concrete cases that mobilize it. The criticisms are scattered and, to a lesser or greater extent, are common to all phases and all subjects of the criminal process, from investigation to appeals, from the accused to the judicial actors. This session seeks to confront this multifaceted perception of the inefficiencies of the justice system, in order to systematise, cross-reference and debate its possible causes. Through a critical dialectic led by different actors from the judicial stage, it is intended to draw a diagnosis of the most critical segments of the criminal justice system and to outline possible solutions that contribute to improving procedural efficiency and effectiveness without disfiguring the physiognomy and guarantees constitutionally inscribed in the criminal process.

4. Colloquium - Public Policies and Strategies against Corruption
2 December 2021 - Thursday - 09h30-17h00
Auditorium 2, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation
The growing social, media and political concern with the phenomenon of corruption has broadened the boundaries of the debate on its prevention and combat beyond the legal universe and criminal policy, transforming it into a priority public policy issue for the governments of democratic States under the rule of law. The definition and implementation of good preventive practices now require the definition of specific policies, transversal to the entire public sector, which include active measures, whether in the governance models of organisations, suitable to prevent corruption, or in the relationship and supervision with private sector actors.
In Portugal, the National Anti-Corruption Strategy, approved in 2021, marks the adherence to a new paradigm of public policy to combat corruption. In this vein, it seems essential, on the one hand, to understand whether the formula found in the National Strategy corresponds to international public policy models and, on the other, to reflect on whether the specific motivations and main thrusts of the National Strategy are being implemented or not, seeking a critical assessment of its effective application.