When Police Are Accused of Assault, the Case Must Not Go to Their Own Force, Portugal's Prosecutor General Orders

When a police officer is accused of assaulting someone, Portugal's prosecutors should not hand the investigation to the officer's own force. They should, wherever possible, question the victim and the eyewitnesses themselves, and move fast to secure any CCTV footage before it is overwritten. That is one of the standing orders in a 28-page directive from the Procurador-Geral da República (Prosecutor General), Amadeu Guerra, published in the Diário da República (the official gazette) on Thursday 24 September.

Diretiva n.º 2/2026 (Directive 2/2026), signed on 15 September, tells the Ministério Público (Public Prosecution Service) how to carry out the Lei de Política Criminal (Criminal Policy Law) for 2026 to 2028, which parliament passed as Lei n.º 35/2026 of 27 July. The law sets which crimes come first; the directive says how. It binds every public prosecutor and the police bodies working under their direction.

Violence by or against police, medics and firefighters

The first priority in the directive covers crimes against the life or physical integrity of police officers, civil protection agents, emergency medical crews and health professionals, and crimes committed by them. For these cases the directive orders:

• concentration in a specialised or semi-specialised section, or with a prosecutor experienced in this kind of case;
• no delegation of the investigation to the police force whose officers are involved. In complex cases, or where it would be faster, the case may go to a different force;
• early checks for video surveillance cameras at the scene, and an order to preserve and hand over the recordings;
• early collection of any photographs, medical examinations or nursing records made when the victim entered a hospital or a prison;
• questioning of victims, presided over by a prosecutor where possible, and of eyewitnesses by a prosecutor, "to avoid contamination of evidence".

Where someone is brought before a prosecutor or an investigating judge with injuries consistent with assault, prosecutors must consider opening a separate investigation. Every investigation opened against police officers is to be reported to the Direção-Geral de Reinserção e Serviços Prisionais (prisons and probation service) and to the Inspeção-Geral da Administração Interna (Inspectorate-General of Internal Administration). Investigations against health professionals are notified to their professional order, and those against civil protection or emergency staff other than doctors to the inspectorate for emergency and civil protection services.

A bill for putting out the fire

In every forest fire investigation, prosecutors must obtain from the Autoridade Nacional de Emergência e Proteção Civil (National Emergency and Civil Protection Authority, ANEPC) the cost of putting the fire out. If the case goes to charge, the directive makes it compulsory to file a civil claim for those costs against the defendants, on behalf of the State.

Where a fire was caused by negligence and the case is provisionally suspended instead of going to trial, prosecutors should consider making repayment of the suppression costs one of the conditions, if the defendant can afford it. Investigators are also told to record the weather, the fire danger warnings in force, the terrain and the type of vegetation on the day.

Immigration cases to be screened for trafficking

Human trafficking and assisting illegal immigration are both priority crimes. The directive orders prosecutors to examine cases under the foreigners' entry and residence law, including assisting illegal immigration, marriages or civil partnerships of convenience, illegal labour recruitment and employing foreigners without papers, for signs of trafficking. Adoption cases should be looked at too where there are signs that consent was bought.

Investigators are told to coordinate with the Agência para a Integração, Migrações e Asilo (the immigration agency, AIMA), the Autoridade para as Condições do Trabalho (the labour inspectorate, ACT) and the Autoridade de Segurança Alimentar e Económica (the food and economic safety authority, ASAE). Organised or international trafficking cases go straight to the Departamento Central de Investigação e Ação Penal (Central Department of Criminal Investigation and Prosecution, DCIAP).

Victims are to be protected, housed and referred through the national referral system, and prosecutors are reminded that the Penal Code bars punishing a trafficking victim for an offence that was a direct consequence of their exploitation. Prosecutors must also report data on shelved and charged trafficking cases, broken down by sex, age, nationality and type of exploitation, for the national trafficking observatory.

Online fraud, health fraud and the environment

• Cybercrime: data that could identify a suspect should be requested from telecoms providers at the very start of an investigation, before it is delegated to the police. For providers with a legal representative in the EU, prosecutors should use the new European production and preservation orders for electronic evidence. Cases involving intimate images or private material spread online are to get special priority, with access to the content blocked where necessary. The directive names crimes committed with artificial intelligence tools that reach many victims.
• The health service: fraud in the prescribing, dispensing and billing of medicines, medical devices, diagnostic tests and care paid for by the State, and corruption in health procurement.
• The environment: water pollution, trafficking in waste and wild species including meixão (glass eels), and the killing or capture of wolves, wild birds and marine species. Diversion from trial "cannot project the idea that it pays to offend".
• Sport: stadium bans should be applied whenever the legal conditions are met.

The general orders at the end list the crimes that should move fastest, including unlawful occupation of property (usurpação de coisa imóvel), forest fire, corruption, cybercrime and crimes in schools and health services. Priority cases must be flagged on the file cover and electronically. Prosecutors may use non-institutional artificial intelligence tools only within the principles of the service's ethics charter, including human supervision.

What this means for residents of Portugal

• If you are a victim of crime: the directive restates your right to be spoken to in plain language and to be accompanied by a person you trust or a victim support worker. Especially vulnerable victims, a group in which the directive names immigrants, should also be kept apart from the accused at hearings.
• If you report police violence: your statement should, where possible, be taken by a prosecutor, and the investigation should not sit with the force involved.
• If you burn garden waste or use machinery in the countryside: anyone charged over a forest fire, including a negligent one, now faces a claim from the State for the cost of fighting it.
• If you were brought to Portugal to work and then exploited: prosecutors handling immigration offences must look for signs of trafficking, and a trafficking victim should not be punished for offences that were a direct result of the exploitation.

Prosecution offices must report their results to the Procuradoria-Geral da República every six months, starting with July to December 2026, due by 31 January 2027. Our June report covered the criminal policy law as parliament approved it.

Source: Diretiva n.º 2/2026, Procuradoria-Geral da República, Diário da República, 2.ª série, n.º 186 of 24 September 2026.