The Relation between the Public Prosecutor and the Minister of Justice
Chapter II
The Relation between the Public Prosecutor and the Minister of Justice
The prosecution service has nationwide competencies and is hierarchically organised. It is organised into judicial areas or counties, and, within those, into district jurisdiction.
The prosecution service is nationally represented by the Procurator General of Republic, who is head of the prosecution service (Sect. 219 Constitution). In the counties, the service is represented by an Assistant Prosecutor-General (Sects. 55 and 57 Statute). In each district jurisdiction in turn, there are assistant prosecutors directed by prosecutors of the Republic (Sects. 60 and 62 Statute).
The prosecution service is organised hierarchically (Sects. 219 Constitution and 76 Statute). This means that prosecutors have to follow directives, orders and instructions received from their superiors (Sect. 76 Statute).
The CCP regulates presentation of an indictment by the prosecution service. The prosecution is under a duty to present an indictment whenever sufficient information has been gathered to establish the commission of a crime and to identify a perpetrator Sects. 283 and 285 CCP). It is important to note however, that there is a difference between public crimes on the one hand, and semi-public crimes and private crimes on the other. A private person entitled to press charges and bring a private prosecution, can withdraw them at any time until the passing of the sentence in the first instance (Sects. 51 and 114 CCP). Also, in a case where the prosecution service shelves a file, due to lack of evidence or to inadmissibility of the procedures, the case still has to be continued if the victim so requests (Sect. 287 CCP).
A public prosecutors career goes through up to five stages: assistant prosecutor, prosecutor of the Republic, Assistant Prosecutor-General, Vice Prosecutor-General, and Prosecutor-General.
There are different mechanisms for the appointment of the public prosecutors, the appointment to the entrance category, assistant prosecutor, is held after taking a course and a traineeship (Sect. 114 Statute), the appointment for the category of prosecutor of the Republic is given on merit and seniority, and the promotion to Assistant Prosecutor-General is on merit (Sect. 116 Statute). Both the appointment of Prosecutor-General and of Vice Prosecutor-General takes place through nomination.
The Prosecutor-General is appointed by the President of the Republic, at the proposal of the Government, for a term of six years. All other prosecutors are appointed by the Higher Council of the Public Prosecution.
In general, we can say that promotion by seniority always implies a promotion on merit, in the proportion of three by merit and one by seniority (Sect. 121 Statute). The promotion by seniority always implies taking the merit of the magistrate into consideration. This follows from the fact that the law determines that in case of promotion by seniority, it is a requirement that performance appraisal is not less than good, and if the promotion is on merit, the requirement is that an appraisal of the prosecutor is not less than very good. In case of a tie when the promotion is on merit, the more senior is chosen (Sect. 117 Statute).
The hierarchical structure of the prosecution service is organised as follows:
- the Prosecutor-General’s Office is the highest body within the prosecution service. It is headed by the Prosecutor-General who has hierarchical competence over all prosecution offices and over all individual prosecutors;
- general district prosecutor’s offices are managed by a general district prosecutor who directs and co-ordinates the activities of the public prosecutors in the judicial district by issuing orders and instructions;
- prosecutor’s offices can be found at each main court of the judicial district, where there is a prosecutor of the Republic co-ordinator who runs the service, by standardising procedures and by co-ordinating the work of the other prosecutors of the Republic to achieve rationalisation and co-ordination of resources;
- the local sections of the public prosecutors are run by a prosecutor of the Republic who reports to the general district prosecutor.
Thus, the assistant prosecutors report to the prosecutors of the Republic, who report to the prosecutor of the Republic co-ordinator and to the general district prosecutor. The prosecutor of the Republic co-ordinator reports to the general district prosecutor and the Assistant Prosecutor-General reports to the Prosecutor-General.
Parallel to the territorial structure, there is a structure organising the participation of public prosecutors in the areas of investigation and penal action into departments of investigation and penal action and central departments of investigation and penal action.
Departments of Investigation and Penal Action are present in every head office of the judicial districts and in local courts where the number of inquiries might exceed 5000 annually.
These departments are created by the Ministry of Justice after hearing the Higher Council of the Public Prosecution. Presently, there are only four of these departments in Coimbra, Évora, Lisboa and Porto.
The powers of the departments are:
- to lead the inquiry and penal action on all crimes within the jurisdiction of the court;
- to lead the inquiry and penal action for the most important crimes occurring in more than one area of the same judicial district;
- to lead the inquiry into very serious crimes in accordance with the instructions of the General District Prosecutor when the complexity or territorial dispersion ask for a centralisation of investigations.
Departments of Investigation and Penal Action in the headquarters of the judicial district are lead by Assistant General Prosecutors or prosecutors of the Republic. Sometimes they are structured in sections according to the nature or frequency of crimes. Such sections are lead by prosecutors of the Republic (Sect. 72 CCP).
The Central Department of Investigation and Penal Action is a national body that has a generic material competence over the co-ordination and direction of investigation and crime prevention of highly violent, organised, and particularly complex, crime. It has specific powers in terms of crime prevention for crimes such as: money laundering, ccorruption, criminal bankruptcy, deliberate public sector mismanagement, fraud in access to public funds, economic infractions made in organised manner or with resource to information technologies and economic and financial infraction of international or multinational dimensions.
The Central Department directs and co-ordinates the investigations regarding these crimes. It also supervises inquiries that deal with crimes that have occurred in different judicial areas. At the request of the Prosecutor-General, the central department also leads inquiries in serious crimes, when their particular complexity and geographic dispersion justify the centralisation of investigations.
The Central Department also gets involved in cases of certain types of serious crimes such as: voluntary murder when the offender is unknown, crimes against freedom and against sexual self determination which carry a statutory penalty exceeding five year imprisonment, whilst the offender is unknown or the victim is under sixteen years old or otherwise incapable of self-determination, trafficking of stolen vehicles, slavery, hostage taking and kidnapping, offences which jeopardise the security of transportation by air, land, railway and water and carry a statutory sentence of more than eight years imprisonment, robbery on financial institutions, tax offices and mail offices, criminal associations, or forgery of money.
The highest authority in the prosecution service is the Prosecutor-General’s Office which is a collective body comprising of the Prosecutor-General, the Higher Council of Public Prosecutors, the Consultative Council of Public Prosecutors, the Judicial Auditors and several administrative and technical services (Sects. 220 Constitution and 9 Statute).
The task of the Prosecutor-General’s Office is to ensure that public prosecutors fulfil their competencies and duties properly. These are in more detail: to represent the State and defend the interests determined by law, to participate in the implementation of criminal policy as defined by sovereign bodies, to exercise penal action guided by the principle of legality and to defend de democratic legality (Sect. 219 Constitution).
In Portugal, a real prosecution policy with priority setting in the prosecution of certain crimes is unknown as a result of legality principle. In accordance with this principle the prosecution service is under an obligation to initiate, to lead, and to close an inquiry, once a crime has been registered with the police. This process is, under current law, not subject to further development of policies or strategies of charging offenders. Prosecutors must charge if they find sufficient evidence, if not, they must close the inquiry without charges.
Following the constitutional principle of equality, and the legality principle that demands that every crime must be investigated, it seems that it would be against the law to set a higher priority for penal action on one type of crime than on another.
This however, does not prevent the setting of priorities in the investigation of concrete crimes, in concrete circumstances, taking their importance and the importance attached to these crimes by the parties involved into account, or even the media coverage of the case. In practice, priority setting in investigation may also result from the organisational structure of the prosecution service and the police.
As a matter of fact, well equipped units may be established in order to improve investigation of certain types of crime, even in prejudice of other types of crime.
Prosecutors are hierarchically subordinated, which means that they have to follow directives, orders and instructions issued by their superiors. Those orders and instructions might deal with specific topics like the rules governing the relationship between prosecutors and the police, social integration organisations, drug-addicts treatment and cure organisations.
The Central Department of Investigation and Penal Action, led by a Vice Prosecutor-General, has the powers to issue orders and instructions on the way prosecutors and police should investigate, as well as regarding crimes whose investigation they are competent to co-ordinate.
In accordance with Order 11/99 of the Prosecutor-General, the central department has been given the power to investigate cases of serious crime, which previously fell under the exclusive competence of the Prosecutor-General.
The public prosecutor’s main task is to defend democratic legality (Sect. 219 Constitution). This is done through strict compliance with the legality principle and through the institution of criminal proceedings. It is achieved through the implementation of criminal policy as adopted by Parliament and the Government and through prosecution and co-ordination of action on the prevention of crime.
The prosecution service must ensure full compliance with the law, not only by State organs but also by the citizens in general. Its actions may be either preventive or concerned with violation of the law. In the first case, the Advisory Council of the Prosecutor’s office, and its representatives in the ministries, gives legal opinions on bills, on the compatibility of international conventions or agreements with Portuguese legislation, and on the existence of any flaws, contradictions or obscure passages in legal texts. In the second case, the prosecution service ensures that the jurisdictional function is being exercised in conformity with the Constitution and the law, by monitoring the work of the judicial officers within the prosecution service and lodging appeals against any court decisions taken in express violation of the law.
The prosecution service is obliged to refer to the Constitutional Court any cases in which the courts have refused to apply a provision whose constitutionality has been questioned and which appears in an international convention. An appeal must also be lodged against any court decision which applies a provision that has previously been ruled unconstitutional or illegal by the Constitutional Court (Sect. 280 Constitution).
Pursuant to Sect. 152 of the Decree-Law 295-A/90, the Prosecutor-General may request of the police information on their procedural activities and inspect their services in order to supervise their legality, especially in what concerns the protection of society against crime.
As a rule, the prosecution service has the monopoly over prosecution except for semi-public crimes and private crimes. Concerning semi-public crimes the public prosecutor needs a formal complaint by the victim or whoever represents him in order to prosecute. Once this complaint is presented to the appropriate authorities the offended party may not give his pardon or give up the criminal procedure. This is the case with sexual offences, lack of due assistance to the family, property damage and others.
The private crimes require a private accusation preceding the public prosecution. This is the case with nearly all forms of crimes against the honour of a person.
The closure of the inquiry is brought about by a decision to prosecute or close the case (Sect. 276 CCP), depending on whether the prosecutor has gathered enough evidence to establish the commission of a crime and to identify a potential suspect.
The decision whether or not to present the indictment can be confirmed by a phase referred to as preliminary judicial inquiry (instrução). This inquiry only occurs at the request of the accused person, in relation to facts on the basis of which the public prosecutor or the private prosecutor (assistente) have filed the indictment, or at the request of the private prosecutor, in relation to facts on the basis of which the public prosecutor has not filed the indictment (Sect. 287 CCP).
The optional nature of the preliminary judicial inquiry consists, essentially, of the investigative acts carried out by the judge, assisted by the police whose functions are dependent on him (Sect. 209 CCP).
Pursuant to Sect. 308 of the CCP, the preliminary judicial inquiry is closed by a decision whether or not to proceed to trial.
The public prosecutor is obliged to prosecute whenever there is sufficient evidence that a crime has been committed and the offender has been identified.
However, when dealing with crimes of a less serious nature, notably those punishable by prison sentences not exceeding the three years as the maximum applicable, pursuant to Sects. 281 and 281 CCP, the public prosecutor may, with the agreement of the investigating judge, decide to close or suspend all proceedings, provided, of course, that all the legally specified criteria are met. In these situations there is certain latitude in which the principle of expediency may exist in criminal proceedings.
Three cases exist where the public prosecutor must refrain from prosecution:
- when, the inquiries show that the offender is innocent, because there is enough evidence that he did not commit the crime (Sect. 277 CCP);
- when there is no sufficient evidence that a crime has been committed, that is, when it can be seriously doubted that there is a reasonable change of securing a conviction (Sect. 277 CCP);
- when the prosecution is legally inadmissible, due to time limits or the lack of an accusation in private crimes (Sects. 68 and 285 CCP).
After the indictment, the public prosecutor may request an acquittal or penal immunity if the evidence is too weak or defenses lead to absence of guilt.
In accordance with Sect. 19 of the Constitution and Sect. 2 of the Statute, the prosecution enjoys autonomy in relation to the other central, regional and local State powers. The prosecution service is independent from the executive or judicial power.
Therefore, the Minister of Justice and the Government are unable to intervene in a criminal inquiry.
The Minister of Justice however, may require information about a criminal investigation from the prosecution service provided that this is not secret.
The Minister of Justice and the Government can only be called to answer to the parliament on the state of justice, on the necessity to increase the means essential for the administration of justice and on the necessity of implementation of legislative measures. They cannot be questioned by Parliament on prosecution policy at large or on individual prosecution decisions.
In Portugal, public prosecutors are not vested with the right to settle a criminal case out of court.
The Relation between the Public Prosecutor and the Minister of Justice
The prosecution service has nationwide competencies and is hierarchically organised. It is organised into judicial areas or counties, and, within those, into district jurisdiction.
The prosecution service is nationally represented by the Procurator General of Republic, who is head of the prosecution service (Sect. 219 Constitution). In the counties, the service is represented by an Assistant Prosecutor-General (Sects. 55 and 57 Statute). In each district jurisdiction in turn, there are assistant prosecutors directed by prosecutors of the Republic (Sects. 60 and 62 Statute).
The prosecution service is organised hierarchically (Sects. 219 Constitution and 76 Statute). This means that prosecutors have to follow directives, orders and instructions received from their superiors (Sect. 76 Statute).
The CCP regulates presentation of an indictment by the prosecution service. The prosecution is under a duty to present an indictment whenever sufficient information has been gathered to establish the commission of a crime and to identify a perpetrator Sects. 283 and 285 CCP). It is important to note however, that there is a difference between public crimes on the one hand, and semi-public crimes and private crimes on the other. A private person entitled to press charges and bring a private prosecution, can withdraw them at any time until the passing of the sentence in the first instance (Sects. 51 and 114 CCP). Also, in a case where the prosecution service shelves a file, due to lack of evidence or to inadmissibility of the procedures, the case still has to be continued if the victim so requests (Sect. 287 CCP).
A public prosecutors career goes through up to five stages: assistant prosecutor, prosecutor of the Republic, Assistant Prosecutor-General, Vice Prosecutor-General, and Prosecutor-General.
There are different mechanisms for the appointment of the public prosecutors, the appointment to the entrance category, assistant prosecutor, is held after taking a course and a traineeship (Sect. 114 Statute), the appointment for the category of prosecutor of the Republic is given on merit and seniority, and the promotion to Assistant Prosecutor-General is on merit (Sect. 116 Statute). Both the appointment of Prosecutor-General and of Vice Prosecutor-General takes place through nomination.
The Prosecutor-General is appointed by the President of the Republic, at the proposal of the Government, for a term of six years. All other prosecutors are appointed by the Higher Council of the Public Prosecution.
In general, we can say that promotion by seniority always implies a promotion on merit, in the proportion of three by merit and one by seniority (Sect. 121 Statute). The promotion by seniority always implies taking the merit of the magistrate into consideration. This follows from the fact that the law determines that in case of promotion by seniority, it is a requirement that performance appraisal is not less than good, and if the promotion is on merit, the requirement is that an appraisal of the prosecutor is not less than very good. In case of a tie when the promotion is on merit, the more senior is chosen (Sect. 117 Statute).
The hierarchical structure of the prosecution service is organised as follows:
- the Prosecutor-General’s Office is the highest body within the prosecution service. It is headed by the Prosecutor-General who has hierarchical competence over all prosecution offices and over all individual prosecutors;
- general district prosecutor’s offices are managed by a general district prosecutor who directs and co-ordinates the activities of the public prosecutors in the judicial district by issuing orders and instructions;
- prosecutor’s offices can be found at each main court of the judicial district, where there is a prosecutor of the Republic co-ordinator who runs the service, by standardising procedures and by co-ordinating the work of the other prosecutors of the Republic to achieve rationalisation and co-ordination of resources;
- the local sections of the public prosecutors are run by a prosecutor of the Republic who reports to the general district prosecutor.
Thus, the assistant prosecutors report to the prosecutors of the Republic, who report to the prosecutor of the Republic co-ordinator and to the general district prosecutor. The prosecutor of the Republic co-ordinator reports to the general district prosecutor and the Assistant Prosecutor-General reports to the Prosecutor-General.
Parallel to the territorial structure, there is a structure organising the participation of public prosecutors in the areas of investigation and penal action into departments of investigation and penal action and central departments of investigation and penal action.
Departments of Investigation and Penal Action are present in every head office of the judicial districts and in local courts where the number of inquiries might exceed 5000 annually.
These departments are created by the Ministry of Justice after hearing the Higher Council of the Public Prosecution. Presently, there are only four of these departments in Coimbra, Évora, Lisboa and Porto.
The powers of the departments are:
- to lead the inquiry and penal action on all crimes within the jurisdiction of the court;
- to lead the inquiry and penal action for the most important crimes occurring in more than one area of the same judicial district;
- to lead the inquiry into very serious crimes in accordance with the instructions of the General District Prosecutor when the complexity or territorial dispersion ask for a centralisation of investigations.
Departments of Investigation and Penal Action in the headquarters of the judicial district are lead by Assistant General Prosecutors or prosecutors of the Republic. Sometimes they are structured in sections according to the nature or frequency of crimes. Such sections are lead by prosecutors of the Republic (Sect. 72 CCP).
The Central Department of Investigation and Penal Action is a national body that has a generic material competence over the co-ordination and direction of investigation and crime prevention of highly violent, organised, and particularly complex, crime. It has specific powers in terms of crime prevention for crimes such as: money laundering, ccorruption, criminal bankruptcy, deliberate public sector mismanagement, fraud in access to public funds, economic infractions made in organised manner or with resource to information technologies and economic and financial infraction of international or multinational dimensions.
The Central Department directs and co-ordinates the investigations regarding these crimes. It also supervises inquiries that deal with crimes that have occurred in different judicial areas. At the request of the Prosecutor-General, the central department also leads inquiries in serious crimes, when their particular complexity and geographic dispersion justify the centralisation of investigations.
The Central Department also gets involved in cases of certain types of serious crimes such as: voluntary murder when the offender is unknown, crimes against freedom and against sexual self determination which carry a statutory penalty exceeding five year imprisonment, whilst the offender is unknown or the victim is under sixteen years old or otherwise incapable of self-determination, trafficking of stolen vehicles, slavery, hostage taking and kidnapping, offences which jeopardise the security of transportation by air, land, railway and water and carry a statutory sentence of more than eight years imprisonment, robbery on financial institutions, tax offices and mail offices, criminal associations, or forgery of money.
The highest authority in the prosecution service is the Prosecutor-General’s Office which is a collective body comprising of the Prosecutor-General, the Higher Council of Public Prosecutors, the Consultative Council of Public Prosecutors, the Judicial Auditors and several administrative and technical services (Sects. 220 Constitution and 9 Statute).
The task of the Prosecutor-General’s Office is to ensure that public prosecutors fulfil their competencies and duties properly. These are in more detail: to represent the State and defend the interests determined by law, to participate in the implementation of criminal policy as defined by sovereign bodies, to exercise penal action guided by the principle of legality and to defend de democratic legality (Sect. 219 Constitution).
In Portugal, a real prosecution policy with priority setting in the prosecution of certain crimes is unknown as a result of legality principle. In accordance with this principle the prosecution service is under an obligation to initiate, to lead, and to close an inquiry, once a crime has been registered with the police. This process is, under current law, not subject to further development of policies or strategies of charging offenders. Prosecutors must charge if they find sufficient evidence, if not, they must close the inquiry without charges.
Following the constitutional principle of equality, and the legality principle that demands that every crime must be investigated, it seems that it would be against the law to set a higher priority for penal action on one type of crime than on another.
This however, does not prevent the setting of priorities in the investigation of concrete crimes, in concrete circumstances, taking their importance and the importance attached to these crimes by the parties involved into account, or even the media coverage of the case. In practice, priority setting in investigation may also result from the organisational structure of the prosecution service and the police.
As a matter of fact, well equipped units may be established in order to improve investigation of certain types of crime, even in prejudice of other types of crime.
Prosecutors are hierarchically subordinated, which means that they have to follow directives, orders and instructions issued by their superiors. Those orders and instructions might deal with specific topics like the rules governing the relationship between prosecutors and the police, social integration organisations, drug-addicts treatment and cure organisations.
The Central Department of Investigation and Penal Action, led by a Vice Prosecutor-General, has the powers to issue orders and instructions on the way prosecutors and police should investigate, as well as regarding crimes whose investigation they are competent to co-ordinate.
In accordance with Order 11/99 of the Prosecutor-General, the central department has been given the power to investigate cases of serious crime, which previously fell under the exclusive competence of the Prosecutor-General.
The public prosecutor’s main task is to defend democratic legality (Sect. 219 Constitution). This is done through strict compliance with the legality principle and through the institution of criminal proceedings. It is achieved through the implementation of criminal policy as adopted by Parliament and the Government and through prosecution and co-ordination of action on the prevention of crime.
The prosecution service must ensure full compliance with the law, not only by State organs but also by the citizens in general. Its actions may be either preventive or concerned with violation of the law. In the first case, the Advisory Council of the Prosecutor’s office, and its representatives in the ministries, gives legal opinions on bills, on the compatibility of international conventions or agreements with Portuguese legislation, and on the existence of any flaws, contradictions or obscure passages in legal texts. In the second case, the prosecution service ensures that the jurisdictional function is being exercised in conformity with the Constitution and the law, by monitoring the work of the judicial officers within the prosecution service and lodging appeals against any court decisions taken in express violation of the law.
The prosecution service is obliged to refer to the Constitutional Court any cases in which the courts have refused to apply a provision whose constitutionality has been questioned and which appears in an international convention. An appeal must also be lodged against any court decision which applies a provision that has previously been ruled unconstitutional or illegal by the Constitutional Court (Sect. 280 Constitution).
Pursuant to Sect. 152 of the Decree-Law 295-A/90, the Prosecutor-General may request of the police information on their procedural activities and inspect their services in order to supervise their legality, especially in what concerns the protection of society against crime.
As a rule, the prosecution service has the monopoly over prosecution except for semi-public crimes and private crimes. Concerning semi-public crimes the public prosecutor needs a formal complaint by the victim or whoever represents him in order to prosecute. Once this complaint is presented to the appropriate authorities the offended party may not give his pardon or give up the criminal procedure. This is the case with sexual offences, lack of due assistance to the family, property damage and others.
The private crimes require a private accusation preceding the public prosecution. This is the case with nearly all forms of crimes against the honour of a person.
The closure of the inquiry is brought about by a decision to prosecute or close the case (Sect. 276 CCP), depending on whether the prosecutor has gathered enough evidence to establish the commission of a crime and to identify a potential suspect.
The decision whether or not to present the indictment can be confirmed by a phase referred to as preliminary judicial inquiry (instrução). This inquiry only occurs at the request of the accused person, in relation to facts on the basis of which the public prosecutor or the private prosecutor (assistente) have filed the indictment, or at the request of the private prosecutor, in relation to facts on the basis of which the public prosecutor has not filed the indictment (Sect. 287 CCP).
The optional nature of the preliminary judicial inquiry consists, essentially, of the investigative acts carried out by the judge, assisted by the police whose functions are dependent on him (Sect. 209 CCP).
Pursuant to Sect. 308 of the CCP, the preliminary judicial inquiry is closed by a decision whether or not to proceed to trial.
The public prosecutor is obliged to prosecute whenever there is sufficient evidence that a crime has been committed and the offender has been identified.
However, when dealing with crimes of a less serious nature, notably those punishable by prison sentences not exceeding the three years as the maximum applicable, pursuant to Sects. 281 and 281 CCP, the public prosecutor may, with the agreement of the investigating judge, decide to close or suspend all proceedings, provided, of course, that all the legally specified criteria are met. In these situations there is certain latitude in which the principle of expediency may exist in criminal proceedings.
Three cases exist where the public prosecutor must refrain from prosecution:
- when, the inquiries show that the offender is innocent, because there is enough evidence that he did not commit the crime (Sect. 277 CCP);
- when there is no sufficient evidence that a crime has been committed, that is, when it can be seriously doubted that there is a reasonable change of securing a conviction (Sect. 277 CCP);
- when the prosecution is legally inadmissible, due to time limits or the lack of an accusation in private crimes (Sects. 68 and 285 CCP).
After the indictment, the public prosecutor may request an acquittal or penal immunity if the evidence is too weak or defenses lead to absence of guilt.
In accordance with Sect. 19 of the Constitution and Sect. 2 of the Statute, the prosecution enjoys autonomy in relation to the other central, regional and local State powers. The prosecution service is independent from the executive or judicial power.
Therefore, the Minister of Justice and the Government are unable to intervene in a criminal inquiry.
The Minister of Justice however, may require information about a criminal investigation from the prosecution service provided that this is not secret.
The Minister of Justice and the Government can only be called to answer to the parliament on the state of justice, on the necessity to increase the means essential for the administration of justice and on the necessity of implementation of legislative measures. They cannot be questioned by Parliament on prosecution policy at large or on individual prosecution decisions.
In Portugal, public prosecutors are not vested with the right to settle a criminal case out of court.
