A 17-Page Complaint of Bullying and Irregular Hiring at Portugal's Parliament Was Archived Without Either Named Official Being Interviewed

An anonymous 17-page complaint alleging two years of workplace bullying and a wave of irregular appointments inside the Assembleia da República (Assembly of the Republic) has been closed without either of the two officials it names being interviewed. The archiving was proposed by the parliament's own legal auditor, who had already asked to leave his post with more than two years of a three-year mandate still to run.

The account was reported on Thursday by Público and carried by ECO and Jornal de Negócios.

What the Complaint Alleged

The document reached the office of the President of the Assembly, José Pedro Aguiar-Branco, in May, delivered through the Socialist Party parliamentary group. It was dispatched for investigation two weeks later.

Across 17 pages it describes conduct attributed to Hugo Tavares, the adjunct to the Secretary-General of the Assembly, in language the complainants did not soften: "offences, shouting, threats, persecution and illegality that have been taking place." The alleged behaviour spans roughly two years.

The second strand concerns staffing. The complaint sets out dozens of appointments in which people from outside parliament were brought in through the mechanism of cedência de interesse público (secondment in the public interest) to occupy management positions that, on the complainants' reading, should have gone to career parliamentary staff. The number of people holding posts under that arrangement is said to have risen from 11 to 61.

An Inquiry That Did Not Interview the Accused

Neither the Secretary-General, Anabela Cabral Ferreira, nor her adjunct was heard during the inquiry. Staff who did give statements told Público that their accounts were summarised rather than recorded in full, and that they were never notified of the conclusions.

The inquiry was run by the parliament's legal auditor, deputy prosecutor-general Carlos Alberto Oliveira. Several staff members say he told them the matter was "very serious." He then asked to be released from the role with more than two of his three years unserved. His replacement took office on 15 July, by which point the process was already closed.

Aguiar-Branco's office says the procedure was followed: "the diligences concluded, the legal auditor proposed archiving the process, because the indications contained in the complaint were not confirmed." After receiving the report on 31 July, the President of the Assembly asked the auditor for further clarification. The auditor reiterated the proposal to archive.

Why the Mechanism Matters

The cedência de interesse público is a legitimate instrument of Portuguese public employment law. It allows a worker from one public body, or in some cases a private one, to be placed in another where there is a recognised public interest in doing so, without a competitive recruitment procedure. It exists to move specific expertise quickly.

The reason a jump from 11 to 61 attracts attention is that parliament's permanent staff are recruited through their own career track, and the whole point of that track is insulation from the political cycle. If management layers can be filled by secondment instead, the career structure below them becomes decorative. That is the substance of what the complainants say happened, and it is the part of the allegation that no interview with the two named officials was conducted to test.

The timing is unhelpful for an institution already under pressure. Parliament returns to a crowded autumn: Chega has just filed the 37th censure motion of Portuguese democracy, the 2027 Budget arrives with its policy reforms already stripped out to ease passage through a divided chamber, and the house is still working through routine business such as the sixty-day extension granted to the government on the question of whether Fátima can become a municipality.

What This Means for Expats

• Harassment at work is a defined legal wrong in Portugal. Article 29 of the Código do Trabalho (Labour Code) prohibits assédio, covering unwanted conduct that degrades a worker's dignity or creates a hostile environment, and it applies to public and private employers alike.
• Employers of a certain size must have a code of conduct. Companies with seven or more workers are required to adopt one covering harassment and to open a disciplinary process where a credible complaint is made.
• The ACT is the external route. The Autoridade para as Condições do Trabalho (Working Conditions Authority) takes complaints directly, including anonymously, and is the body to approach when an internal process goes nowhere.
• Anonymity does not guarantee an outcome. As this case shows, an anonymous complaint can be investigated and closed without the complainants being told what was concluded. Where you can, keep your own dated record of incidents.
• Hiring routes are being tested in court. Portuguese labour law is currently being pushed on questions of who the real employer is, as in the first Porto Labour Court ruling on employer of record arrangements, which refused to let the company receiving the work step out of the case.

The file is closed and the auditor who closed it has gone. What has not been produced is any account of why the two people at the centre of the allegations were never asked to answer them, and parliament has so far offered no explanation beyond the finding that the indications were not confirmed.