André Kosters / Lusa
Former Prime Minister, José Sócrates
Sócrates claims to have suffered reputational damage and the loss of a contract that would have paid him 25 thousand euros per month due to Operation Marquês.
The judgment of the action in which José Sócrates demands from the Portuguese State a compensation of 205 thousand euros for alleged delays in the Operation Marquis investigation that begins this Thursday.
The former prime minister maintains that the Public Ministry’s delay caused him financial losses and serious reputational damage. The action was filed in 2017, but has only now reached the trial stage in the administrative jurisdiction. In parallel, Sócrates also maintains a complaint at the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), in Strasbourg, also focusing on the excessive length of the process.
The main accused of Operation Marquis argues that the Public Ministry’s investigation exceeded legally acceptable deadlines. According to his position, the investigation should have ended in October 2015, but it was only completed two years later. During this period, he says he was the target of successive violations of judicial secrecy and a public exposure that profoundly affected his personal and professional life, cites .
In the complaint presented, Sócrates states that lost a consulting contract with the pharmaceutical company Octapharma, worth R$ 25 thousand per month, due to the impact of the research. The defendant in Operation Marquis also claims that the constant public association with the case caused damage to his image and undermined his presumption of innocence.
The decision of the judge of the Lisbon Circle Administrative Court will have to follow the criteria defined by the European Court of Human Rights to assess procedural delays. Factors considered include the complexity of the process, the behavior of the parties, the actions of the authorities and the consequences of the dispute on the lives of those involved.
Despite the media and judicial dimension of Operation Marquês, experts remember that the ECtHR has understood that the lack of resources in the courts or excessive work do not justify excessive delays. Even so, the eventual compensation may fall far short of the amount requested by Sócrates, given that it is customary to be awarded around 1500 euros for each year of delay considered unjustified.
