Procuradoria-Geral da República Adopts Ethics Charter Barring Magistrates From AI Conviction-Prediction and Recidivism-Scoring Models

The Procuradoria-Geral da República (PGR — Public Prosecutor's Office) has approved a binding internal directive — the Carta para a Utilização Ética da Inteligência Artificial (Charter for the Ethical Use of Artificial Intelligence) — that bans prosecutors and magistrates from using AI tools to predict the likelihood of a conviction, evaluate individual recidivism risk, or recommend pretrial detention. The text was published on 11 June 2026 and applies across the entire Ministério Público (Public Prosecution Service) network.

What the Charter Prohibits

• Forecasting the probability of conviction in a specific case using algorithmic models
• Scoring individual criminal-risk profiles or recidivism probability for any arguido (defendant)
• Recommending pretrial detention measures through automated decision systems
• Inputting identifiable personal data, case materials, or confidential information into external cloud-based AI platforms
• Processing prosecutorial data outside the European Union

The governing principle is captured in a single sentence the PGR placed at the top of the document: "A ferramenta de IA é um instrumento auxiliar, nunca um decisor" — the AI tool is an auxiliary instrument, never a decision-maker. Final decision authority and accountability remain entirely with the human magistrate handling the case.

Oversight Architecture

The Carta creates a multidisciplinary AI Supervision Committee inside the Ministério Público with authority to immediately suspend any system that exhibits algorithmic bias. The committee will run mandatory periodic audits — both internal and external — and every AI system used by prosecutors must automatically log all inputs, outputs, and user identities for review. The audit trail is not optional and cannot be disabled for individual cases.

The directive's structure mirrors the risk-based approach of the EU Artificial Intelligence Act, which classifies predictive justice tools as high-risk and imposes fundamental-rights assessments before deployment. Portugal had been one of the last EU member states without an internal rulebook for AI use in prosecutorial workflows; the Charter closes that gap and gives the PGR a defensible position if the European Data Protection Supervisor or the Comissão Nacional de Proteção de Dados (National Data Protection Commission) opens a procedure on any specific deployment.

Why the Charter Matters

Predictive justice tools have been used in several European jurisdictions to triage cases or score defendants, and most have produced controversy. Studies of similar systems in the United States and the United Kingdom have found racial and socioeconomic bias baked into training data. By writing the ban into a formal Carta rather than an informal circular, the PGR creates an internal-disciplinary basis for sanctioning magistrates who breach it — which is a stronger deterrent than a non-binding recommendation.

The Charter also forces a domestic-EU data-residency rule on prosecutors, ruling out OpenAI, Anthropic, or any other US-hosted model for sensitive case material unless the provider can demonstrate full processing inside the EU. That requirement narrows the realistic vendor list to European cloud providers or self-hosted open-source models.

What This Means for Expats

• Criminal defence: If you are an arguido in a Portuguese criminal procedure, a prosecutor cannot use an algorithm to argue for your pretrial detention or to predict your guilt — the recommendation must come from documented human reasoning.
• Data protection: Confidential case material involving you cannot be uploaded to ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, or any non-EU AI service by the magistrate handling the case.
• Transparency: Every AI-assisted step in a prosecution is now logged and auditable — defence counsel can request the audit trail in disclosure.
• Vendor implications: If you work in legal-tech or AI for the Portuguese public sector, the Charter effectively locks the prosecution-services market to EU-hosted providers.

The PGR is expected to publish guidance materials and training modules for prosecutors over the next quarter. The Supervision Committee's first audit cycle will begin once the committee's members are formally appointed — a step the PGR did not commit to a date for in the published text.