Portugal's Judicial Police Laboratory Holds No Accreditation for DNA or Fingerprints, Years After the EU Deadlines, and the Justice Minister Says No Evidence Is in Doubt

Portugal's main police forensic laboratory is not accredited for the DNA and fingerprint examinations it hands to the courts as evidence. The story was first reported on Friday by the weekly Nascer do Sol, as relayed by Lusa and ECO. The laboratory is the Laboratório de Polícia Científica (Scientific Police Laboratory, LPC) of the Polícia Judiciária (Judicial Police, PJ).

Justice Minister Rita Alarcão Júdice, speaking in Alcobaça, said there was "a certification issue that does not in the least call into question any evidence that has been produced". The matter "is with the Judicial Police, and the Judicial Police will provide every clarification", she added, and declined to say more. By Friday evening the PJ had posted four other news items on its website that day, but nothing on the laboratory.

The force is already under scrutiny. Prosecutors searched one of its units in September in a false-testimony inquiry linked to the Rui Pinto case, and parliament has opened an inquiry into Luís Neves's eight years as its director.

What the accreditation register shows

In Portugal, laboratories are accredited by the Instituto Português de Acreditação (Portuguese Accreditation Institute, IPAC) against the international standard ISO/IEC 17025. IPAC's public register, searched on Friday, lists 11 accredited tests for the LPC's Lisbon and Porto sites under certificate L0733. They cover firearms testing, bullet and cartridge comparison, the authenticity of identity documents and banknotes, and handwriting and signatures. None is a DNA or fingerprint test. The two technical annexes, which the PJ links from its own website, have been valid since 2 March 2024.

The PJ's page on forensic examinations says the LPC "complies with the accreditation criteria" of the standard, and points to those same two annexes for the tests that are accredited.

The Instituto Nacional de Medicina Legal e Ciências Forenses (National Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences, INMLCF), which runs the national DNA database, is in a different position. Its genetics and forensic biology service holds IPAC accreditation for DNA profiling of blood, saliva, semen, bone, teeth and other samples, including in criminal cases. Searches of the register found no Portuguese laboratory accredited for fingerprint comparison.

Why accreditation matters

An EU law, Council Framework Decision 2009/905/JHA, requires every forensic laboratory producing DNA profiles or fingerprint and palm print data for police or judicial authorities to be accredited to ISO/IEC 17025 by its national accreditation body. The deadlines were 30 November 2013 for DNA and 30 November 2015 for fingerprints. The aim is mutual trust: an accredited laboratory's results must be treated as equally reliable across the EU, as police exchange DNA and fingerprint matches between countries.

The same law sets limits. It "does not affect national rules on the judicial assessment of evidence", so it does not decide what a Portuguese court may accept. It also does not affect the validity of results produced before it was implemented, even by unaccredited laboratories.

Portugal's own DNA database law, Law 5/2008 (republished in 2017), names the LPC and the INMLCF as the two bodies that produce DNA profiles. It requires both to "adopt the conditions necessary" to meet the international requirements for accrediting their DNA laboratories.

What is still unknown

• Whether the LPC is being assessed for DNA or fingerprint accreditation, or holds it from any other body.
• How many cases rest on its DNA or fingerprint work rather than the INMLCF's.
• What the PJ will say. The minister has left the explanation to the force.