<![CDATA[ Os tribunais não são fábricas ]]>

Given the enthusiasm with which the Portuguese press has embraced the topic of the "productivity" of the Administrative and Tax Courts in recent days, it may not be unreasonable to propose to the reader a joint reflection on the particularities that should be taken into account when assessing the work carried out by the Courts.

I propose the following thesis, and I ask that you bear with me patiently in the reasoning that I put forward to support it: evaluating the performance of a court according to the same criteria applied to a manufacturing unit constitutes a profound distortion of the nature of the judicial function.

In fact, and without denying that the introduction of management practices inspired by the private sector — such as those proposed by New Public Management (NGP) — has contributed to greater administrative efficiency, there are insurmountable limits when it comes to justice, to their uncritical adoption.

The main reason lies in the essential difference in purposes: while the factory exists to produce goods in a standardized way, with maximum profit and minimum waste, the court exists to guarantee justice, ensure fundamental rights and resolve conflicts equitably.

In factories, the raw material is predictable and homogeneous; processes are designed to produce uniform results. In courts, however, each legal process is unique, unpredictable and full of human, social and legal complexity. Applying uniform metrics to such diverse realities — such as evaluating courts (only) by the number of sentences handed down in them — ignores this complexity and compromises the quality of the judicial response.

Furthermore, judicial work is not governed by assembly line logic.

Justice requires consideration, reasoning and individualization. Pressuring judges to only decide quickly, according to quantifiable goals, can lead to hasty, technically weak or even unfair decisions, violating the right to effective judicial protection.

On the other hand, and unlike what happens in industrial production, a judicial error is not just a statistical deviation: it can ruin lives, destroy reputations, and irreversibly harm citizens' rights. "Quality" in justice therefore has a much greater ethical and constitutional weight.

On the other hand, judges are not mere technical operators. They are sovereign bodies, independent and not subordinate, whose role requires impartiality and freedom of decision. Treating courts as factories and judges as workers subjects them to external pressures and weakens the separation of powers, one of the pillars of the rule of law, as well as their independence.

And having arrived here, it is worth remembering that our Constitution (still…) states that the courts are independent and are only subject to the law.

Finally, the quantitative indicators used in manufacturing assessment — number of parts produced, production time, costs — do not capture what is essential in justice: legitimacy, impartiality, respect for procedural rights and contribution to social peace.

In short, and although modern and attentive management is important, in a State of Law evaluating the courts as if they were factories is, at the very least, dangerous and reductive.

Finally, and without wanting to abuse the Reader's patience, allow me the luxury of a rant: either the headline in a media outlet (Portuguese, yes!) that I recently came across, in which it was stated that [the] "Government wants to monitor judges of the administrative and tax courts", originated in a regrettable misunderstanding, or something truly serious is happening in our country...