2014 A year of trials

The year 2014 is for me the year for Justice because it is also a year of trials.

Despite this end-of-regime decadence when even Bertie's top party members are dissenting and denouncing persecution, election-rigging, and funniest of all, that the PSD has become one-man-show, the Justice system has suddenly seen fit to finish all the remaining Garajau cases in one go. Don't get me wrong, I find it fantastic that the Justice system is getting its act together - I only object to its one-sidedness. The corruption cases and cases of election violations etc remain on the back burner, with no signs of moving ahead. The libel cases against those who denounce what's wrong (the word corruption cannot be used in Portugal since such a thing does not exist in this country) move speedily towards conclusion.

As I was saying all the remaining cases of the Garajau are to reach a conclusion this year. By last year, of the dozens and dozens of criminal complaints against the Garajau, only eight remained. And if anyone was wondering why this blog had been rather silent of late, the reason is that we had eight overlapping trials set start between the November 2013 and February this year. All the remaining eight cases were to go on trial within a four-month period! The justice system is busy with us!

Of these eight, two have been disposed of. Of the six remaining ones, four have been moved by the ports monopoly. Three of these cases pertain to the same factual matter and, cumulatively, a compensation of five hundred and fifty Euros in damages is being asked… for a satirical newspaper with an edition of 1500, less than half of which sold. Such hefty compensations are very dissuasive  indeed and the fact is that the ports have since largely been left to their own devices, both by regional and national papers. But the insistence to prosecute has lead me to take up the matter again, and look into the justice system's follow-up to the ports investigation, which is proving rather interesting.

Since I have decided that I will devote this year to writing about Justice rather than politics, I will be doing a review of the ports case and other such investigations, while simultaneously relating the developments in the various trials.