Portugal’s Ordem dos Advogados (Bar Association) has officially acknowledged what people standing in line at AIMA already know: the system doesn’t work. On August 19, a delegation led by Bastonário João Massano — the head of the Bar Association — went to the Lisbon office in Anjos to see it for themselves. They did. Massano says what they saw confirmed “point by point” everything lawyers have been complaining about for months: huge queues, people arriving at the office before dawn, spending the entire day there, a portal filled with outdated and simply incorrect information, and a lack of consistent procedures.
The Bar Association’s conclusion: under these conditions, an immigrant’s right to legal representation becomes a fiction — a lawyer simply cannot properly handle a client’s case. Ordem is now collecting complaints from lawyers across the country through a dedicated online channel and passing them on to the agency in batches.
At the same time, Jornal de Notícias described the other side of the story — decentralization. AIMA is taking pressure off Lisbon and Porto by assigning appointments in small towns, but based on where slots are available rather than where people live. One person from Almada was called to Carregal do Sal, near Viseu. They made it as far as Coimbra by public transport, but there was no connection beyond that — so they paid €300 for a private car to avoid derailing the process. One couple received three appointments in three different cities for the same case. The actual appointment, according to reports, lasts a couple of minutes. What is that if not a form of mockery?
For context: during its emergency regularization operation, AIMA closed more than 525,000 cases and carried out 763,000 appointments — enormous numbers for a country of this size. Yet complaints about the agency still rose by 37% in the first quarter.
It’s not a complaint from immigrants, but from the Portuguese Bar Association. Does that change anything? So far — nothing: the queues are still there. But until now, it was immigrants themselves complaining about AIMA. Mostly among themselves. Now the same thing is being said officially, in writing, by the legal profession — and the government will have to respond to statements like these.
