Friday's SMMP Walkout Drew 75-80% Adhesion — Operação Babel Sentencing Now 8 May, and the Placement-Rule Fight Reshapes the Judicial Calendar

The Sindicato dos Magistrados do Ministério Público called a national strike for 24 April and got the kind of turnout that bends the judicial calendar. By the union's own count, adhesion ran between 75% and 80% across the country, with the autonomous regions hitting the highest numbers and the most visible casualty being the postponement of the Operação Babel verdict in Porto from the scheduled date to 8 May.

Where the Walkout Bit Hardest

The geography of the strike followed the geography of the grievance. The Azores led the country with adhesion between 76% and 79%, several courts at 100%. Madeira ran between 55% and 60%, also with multiple full closures. The Alentejo and the Algarve recorded the highest count of fully stopped courts and services on the mainland. In the North, adhesion approached 60%, with several courts above that — and that's where the Operação Babel headline lands.

Operação Babel is the Vila Nova de Gaia urbanism case. Sixteen defendants, including former vice-president of the Câmara de Vila Nova de Gaia Patrocínio Azevedo, sat through closing arguments earlier this month. Prosecutors had requested sentences between eight and twelve years for Patrocínio Azevedo, Paulo Malafaia, Elad Dror and João Pedro Lopes. The verdict reading was scheduled for the week of the strike. With the case prosecutors absent, the court bumped the date to 8 May.

What the Magistrates Are Asking For

The grievance is not pay. It is the 2026 placement competition — the annual movimento that decides where prosecutors are posted — and specifically the inclusion of lugares em acumulação: roles that compress multiple jurisdictions into one post. The union argues that since last year's competition the practice has expanded to the point where individual magistrates are being asked to cover criminal, civil, and family-and-minors files simultaneously, sometimes across separate court buildings.

The SMMP's broader case is that the Ministério Público is in collapse. The union cites a shortage of magistrates and clerks, degraded facilities and equipment, and a procedural model that no longer matches the volume. The Procuradora-Geral da República voted against revising the placement rules at the council that designs the competition, which is why the union escalated to the strike.

Why It Matters Beyond Babel

The walkout did more than push one verdict. Hearings were rescheduled across the country, urgent measures (custody validations, witness depositions, urgent search warrants) ran on minimum services only, and the criminal calendar lost a day it cannot easily recover. For litigants on remand, that translates into longer time before resolution; for victims of domestic violence — already a sector under inspection scrutiny in the Porto DIAP — every cancelled hearing extends the gap between accusation and decision.

The Government's Position

The Ministry of Justice has signalled that the package of accelerated procedures approved at last week's Council of Ministers is part of the answer to the SMMP's structural complaints. The package adjusts deadlines in complex cases, reorganises the inquiry-accusation-instruction-contestation chain, and removes some procedural roadblocks that paralyse cases. The union's reply has been that procedural fixes do not solve a staffing shortfall.

The Calendar Ahead

The Operação Babel verdict is now the bellwether for whether the May calendar holds. The PGR has not announced new placement-rule talks. The SMMP has not called a follow-up strike day, but its leadership has kept the option live. For the broader public, the practical signal is that whatever is read into the courtroom microphone in Porto on 8 May will arrive after a strike that the prosecution service itself called the hardest national day it has organised in years.

Related on The Portugal Brief: CGTP’s 2 June general strike against the pacote laboral.