Judicial Responses to COVID-19 Attack: Impacts on the Working Conditions of Portuguese Courts

Abstract

The coronavirus outbreak shows the critical importance of health and safety at work measures and working conditions in all sectors of activity, including the judicial system. The COVID-19 crisis put pressure on the Portuguese judicial system to implement new procedures and practices in a very short time, which severed and exposed some previous identified fragilities of the judiciary organization and management of the judicial system, with consequences in the working conditions of the judicial professionals. The main objective of this article is to analyse the response(s) to the coronavirus crisis concerning the working conditions in the Portuguese judicial system. The pursuit of this objective involved the collection and analysis of legislation and regulation and online news, opinion pieces and press releases from the judicial associations and public official institutions from February to June 2020 concerning the response to the COVID-19 pandemic in the judicial system.