The anonymity of reports of abuses in the church made it difficult to administer justice

The anonymity of victims of sexual violence in the Portuguese Catholic Church hinders the administration of justice, Jose Matos, Coordinator of Criminal Investigations of the Judicial Police, said regarding complaints submitted by the Independent Commission to the Ministry of Public Administration.

“Sex crime is a crime against people. And if I only have the rapist and not the victim, I have no forensic evidence. I can’t prove a sex crime if I don’t have a victim,” he says. Lusa, who is responsible for investigating this crime in the Lisbon and Tagus region, continues: “The fact that this is an anonymous complaint makes it impossible for us to get real justice done in open trials.”

José Matos emphasizes that without an identified target of abuse, it becomes very difficult to collect effective evidence, despite the understanding that the option of anonymity adopted by the IC contributed to a large amount of testimony. 512 testimonies were verified, extrapolating the existence of at least 4,815 victims, with 25 cases forwarded to the Ministry of State (MP).

“For one of the tasks of the Commission, this is great, but for the investigation of a criminal case and the administration of justice, it is very difficult, if not impossible. (…) That is why the deputy did not even mention the majority of the case to the Judicial Police. Because the elements were so scarce, so limited, that it was impossible,” he notes.

The Coordinator of Criminal Investigations of the Judicial Police (SP) for Sexual Offenses at the Lisbon and Vale do Tejo Directorate also admits that “most situations were already prescribed”, so it was no longer legally possible to conduct an investigation, allowing only the victims to “redeem their trauma” .

When asked about the lack of a direct connection between the Independent Commission and the SP, José Matos emphasizes that “it was the decision of the Commission” not to have anyone from this criminal police body, but guarantees that there were contacts between the two organizations about the time, the relative influence that may have a possible presence, due to the large time distance of most of the abuses reported by victims in the Church.

With regard to the proposal of an organization led by child psychiatrist Pedro Strecht to raise the age of the victim to 30 years (instead of the current 23 years), until which a criminal case of sexual abuse of children (under 14 years old) does not provide, the SP coordinator uses the travel of the last three years in head of this area in Lisbon and the Tagus Valley to suggest that such a change would be “residual”, which is expressed in a few dozen cases.

“Given my experience with crimes committed against children and young people, the 10-year statute of limitations even expands, because if a child becomes the object of abuse at the age of five, the Criminal Code allows this until the age of 23 he can report it , that is, it extends from 10 to 18 years. From a certain age, only a 10-year statute of limitations comes into effect, but from the point of view of the administration of justice, a 10-year period is sufficient,” he concludes.