A Lisbon Law Firm Says EMEL Has Been Fining Drivers Outside Its Own Zones and Hours, and It Wants the Money Back
Carlos Barroso says he holds more than a thousand EMEL files and will file in the administrative courts this month. EMEL says it inspects the whole municipality by delegation and does not itself decide the cases. Drivers paid it 5.71 million euros in fines last year.
A Lisbon law firm says it will file an action in the administrative courts this month against EMEL, the municipal company that runs parking in the capital, and that if it succeeds the consequence could be the return of millions of euros in fines already paid. Carlos Barroso, of Carlos Barroso & Associados, told CNN Portugal that his office has been preparing the case since May and has more than a thousand files relating to EMEL contraordenações.
The complaint has three parts. The first is territorial: Barroso says EMEL has inspected and issued notices in areas it does not operate and outside the hours in which it has jurisdiction. The second concerns how motorists' defences are handled. According to him, EMEL receives a written defence and, instead of conducting the process and issuing a decision, replies by email saying it has received the defence, does not accept a reversal of the burden of proof, and considers the process closed.
The third is about time. Barroso says the company and the city council have pursued coercive collection on cases he considers time-barred. In one file he says he expressly warned that the processes had prescribed and that the Câmara Municipal de Lisboa pressed ahead with enforcement anyway.
What EMEL says
EMEL told CNN Portugal that it has competence to inspect parking across the whole municipality of Lisbon by delegation from the council, regardless of whether a given area is tariffed or of its operating hours. It also said it does not itself issue decisions in road traffic contraordenação proceedings: those belong to the council or to the national road safety authority, depending on the seriousness of the offence.
Asked directly about refunds of fines and of clamping, towing and pound charges, the company did not rule them out. "EMEL always complies and will comply with the judicial decisions notified to it," it said.
Why it is being brought this way
Barroso's stated reason for filing in the firm's own name rather than a client's is reach. He argues that because the amounts are small, most drivers simply pay rather than contest, even when they believe they are right, since paying a lawyer costs more than the fine. The aim, he says, is for the court to order the administrative body to comply with the law, for the protection of private rights generally.
Alongside the fines, the office is following cases of drivers whose vehicles were immobilised or towed, and those charges will be claimed back in separate individual actions. The sums at stake are not trivial: CNN Portugal reports that 5.71 million euros in fines were paid to EMEL in the last year alone. Barroso is careful to say he is not arguing against parking regulation. EMEL should exist, he says, but it has to exist with rules and with limits.
What this means for expats
- Keep the paperwork: if you have paid an EMEL fine, the notice, the location, the time and the proof of payment are what any future refund claim would rest on.
- A defence is a formal step: a written defence in a contraordenação process is supposed to produce a reasoned decision, not an acknowledgement email. That distinction is the heart of the case.
- Nothing is suspended: until a court rules, EMEL's notices, tariffs and enforcement all continue as normal.
- Parking costs more than it did: Lisbon raised its paid-parking tariffs in July for the first time in 15 years, and Porto's own fines are climbing toward 300 a day as plate-reading vans multiply.
- Know what a fine can cost you beyond money: our guide to the carta por pontos system explains which offences touch your licence and which do not.
