Domestic violence, beliefs on legislating and paper management
Regarding the scratch that experts gave Portugal about domestic violence, several things came to Baila. Some of them deserved a text, starting with the effects of the cracking, which, as usual, had the powerful result that always has between us, and put everything in startling, reflection and contrition. It also deserved a text to know what the criterion used by the experts for the ‘mildness’ of the penalties, as well as the universe of samples and the basis of analysis, and how they have considered or not the circumstances of concrete cases. It also mattered to better analyze the possible cognitive biases that cross decisions about domestic violence (and many other decisions on other topics), and go beyond the patriarchal view. It was also important to take into account what – contributing to impressive statistics – it is true domestic violence and what is not, in particular what – without devaluing, rather, on the contrary, the issue of domestic violence – is a weapon of throwing or fighting in marital conflicts or effect of the passage from eight to the eighty, which brought us from ‘normality of violence’ to ‘all is violence’. Et Cetera, themes and themes, various and important. But here we go to another, which is the high pending issues regarding criminal proceedings related to domestic violence.
Starting at the beginning, high pending issues, not only is not new in Portugal, but is not exclusive to domestic violence. There are the kicks around, and the causes are several, from a possible excess of litigation to the stained staff of the lack of means (which is true but in part). I am, however, to believe that, more than these, the first two, the first two common to many processes, the third particular of domestic violence. On the one hand, we have the common absence of procedural management (by hierarchies and the owners themselves), in which everything is treated in the same way, at the same time, without choosing and prioritizing, and above all with paper back and forth, page after page, dispatch the order, quota after quota, office on office; And so the days pass.
Of course it is necessary to register and leave formalized, but a little more management spirit and efficiency was not badly thought. On the other hand, we continue, after decade, attached to legality the other investigation, in which it is even sought under the stones even after having already found itself on them, without criteria of opportunity, without choosing (and justifying the choice, of course) and without adapting the means to a taboo that in the 21st century is catastrophic. When in Portugal, the question of the principle of opportunity, which requires three things: courage, transparency and accountability. Finally, but not least, a particularity of domestic violence, which is one of those shots in the foot that the hasty legislator, well-intended and stunned by the noise of published and public opinion gives his feet: the processes of domestic violence are, by law, urgent. All, without distinction, just because they are of domestic violence, whether it is type A, B, C or any type. Now, where everything is urgent, nothing is urgent, it is known. Everything is equivalent. And therefore everything drags on. It is not? It is once again our belief in which everything is resolved with a lady, conjugated with our haste (and some inability) to make them.
Attorney
