At issue were statements by the Minister of Education at the time, accusing union leader André Pestana of lying.
The investigating judge of the Court of the District of Coimbra decided, this Wednesday, not to prosecute the accused, João da Costa, former Minister of Education, “for the commission of the facts attributed to him in the private accusation, capable of, allegedly, the constitute a material perpetrator of the crime of aggravated defamation”.
The leader of the Union of All Teachers (S.TO.P.) filed the lawsuit in June 2023. About six months earlier, at a time when tension between unions, teachers and the Ministry was at a high level, the then the minister would have made statements accusing, on several occasions, the union leader of lying.
João Costa, who requested the instructional debate, did not want to make statements to journalists. The former minister’s lawyer defended that everything was nothing more than political issues, saying that the assistant just wants publicity, even more so now that he is.
Conversely, the prosecution lawyer said at the hearing that it was a repeated and premeditated practice, not a political debate, and, therefore, constitutes an attack on André Pestana’s honor.
