Lisbon (EFE) victim.
“The six-month period currently provided may prove insufficient when the victim needs more time to deal with what happened and decide whether or not to trigger the operation of the criminal response,” the Socialists point out in the approved project.
Extending the term to one year allows “reconciling the needs of the victim with the efficiency in obtaining evidence, without which criminal justice is merely symbolic,” they add.
The plenary session of Parliament also voted several projects of the far-right Chega, Iniciativa Liberal, the Bloco de Esquerda and the animalist PAN so that rape is considered a public crime and thus can be prosecuted ex officio or by any person who becomes aware of the fact, without the need for the victim to report
Rape as a public crime, under debate in Portugal
The projects went down to commissions to continue their processing, but it is expected that they will not go ahead because the Socialists, who have an absolute majority, defend that rape is a semi-public crime.
The socialists consider that this typology values the “autonomy of the victims” over the response they need after the crime and prevents it from being instrumentalized “in the name of community representations”.
The debate on making rape a public crime came after 107,000 citizens signed a petition to ask Parliament for this legislative change.
Violations in Portugal grew by 30% in 2022, to 500 cases, the highest figure in the last decade and also its highest percentage increase, according to the Annual Internal Security Report.
