Rule of law and democratic performance from an EU perspective: isn’t it time to #TakeDemocracySeriously?

Ana Filipa Ribeiro (LL.M. candidate in European Union Law at the School of Law of the University of Minho)

1. Preliminary considerations

Since 2020, the European Commission has been publishing the rule of law report, which aims to examine the latest developments regarding the rule of law in all Member States and this year marks the first report under the Commission’s new mandate.[1]  According to the European Commission itself, Europe’s rule of law report and yearly rule of law cycle strengthen the EU’s democratic resilience, security, and economy at a time when fundamental rights and democratic institutions face growing pressure worldwide.[2] But how do young people evaluate the state of democracy across Europe? What insights are emerging from the newest generation of European scholars and professionals?

That is precisely what the “Our Rule of Law Foundation” (ORoL) set out to explore. This organisation, with this goal in mind and on a “mission (…) to inform youth about the dangers of democratic backsliding through education and engagement, in order to achieve our goal of fostering a pan-European community of students active in the field of the rule of law in the EU”,[3] issued a call for applications and selected young people across Europe to join a project examining the state of democracy on the continent.

Presented last month, the “Our Democracy Report” mobilises more than sixty young democracy rapporteurs across the EU and accession countries to analyse democracy at the national level, merging research, training, and mentorship to foreground youth insights on Europe. Drawing on my role as democracy rapporteur within the Portuguese team, I will limit this article to the chapter covering Portugal.

2. Methodology

In conducting their research, the democracy rapporteurs systematically analyse six thematic domains (participation in governance, justice systems, digital literacy, equality & non-discrimination, climate transition and education & economic empowerment), with the objective of benchmarking strengths and weaknesses across EU Member States, the European Union level, and Ukraine. In fact, our aim was not only to highlight the risks but also to demonstrate evidence of resilience.

With this objective in mind, the democracy rapporteurs adopted a mixed-methods design, integrating quantitative indicators (mainly V-Dem and other reputable datasets) with qualitative analysis to capture both longitudinal trends and lived realities. National teams calibrated their enquiries to the most salient domestic issues while maintaining a common analytical framework that enables robust cross-European comparison. This is complemented by the previously noted chapter examining the institutions of the European Union.[4]

It is pertinent to set out the project’s three sequential stages, each cumulative and designed to integrate rigorous research with lived experience: (1) an intensive programme of expert lectures delivered by leading scholars and practitioners in democracy and the rule of law (as Sophie Pornschlegel from the European Policy Centre, Judge Síofra O’Leary and Professor Kim Lane Scheppele from Princeton University, Jakub Jaraczewski, York Albrecht, Barbara Grabowska-Moroz, and Ana María Montoya, MEPs Michał Wawrykiewicz and Tineke Strik and Joelle Grogan); (2) a bootcamp at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, combining comparative discussions with thematic working groups; and (3) the preparation of national chapters by country teams within their domestic contexts, under close mentor supervision.[5]

3. The Portuguese country chapter

The Portuguese team, of which I was a member, consisted of Marta Rodrigues, Francisco Amaral, and Tomás Gonçalves. Our mentor was Filipe Marques, a judge currently seconded to the Court of Auditors in Lisbon, who oversaw this article’s revision.

After a brief descriptive introduction about our country,[6] and a summary of the Commission assessment and recommendations on Portugal for the past years (2020 to 2024),[7] we identified four topics (one strength and three weaknesses) that, in our opinion, warrant deeper reflection in the Portuguese context.

3.1. Weaknesses

Inefficiency of the justice system was the first weakness identified. Despite recent reforms, especially in the administrative and tax courts, systemic inefficiencies continue to impede access to justice in Portugal, including prolonged delays, staffing shortages, procedural bottlenecks in criminal cases, and limited digitalisation.[8] Portugal’s administrative and tax courts, especially on appeal, still post some of the EU’s longest disposition times, often exceeding 1,000 days.[9] Despite >100% first-instance clearance rates and slight backlog easing, such delays deter litigants and erode legal certainty and trust.[10] Persistent staffing gaps and retention problems, highlighted in the 2024 rule of law report (notably for judicial clerks), alongside poor conditions, limited progression, and an ageing workforce, continue to sap capacity and at times cause administrative paralysis.[11] However, the Portuguese team highlighted that digitalisation has improved. The Ministry of Justice rolled out platforms for case tracking and a cross-court digital case-allocation system. An OECD review from June 2024[12] found greater transparency but limited time savings, as judges and prosecutors must still be physically present during allocation. Judicial actors also question the Ministry’s control of the software architecture, citing risks to judicial independence.[13] Another consideration of the team has verified that, in June 2024, the Government approved an anti-corruption package under Decree-Law 109-E/2021 that allows confiscation of assets without a criminal conviction. While intended to speed action against illicit enrichment, it raises due-process and property-rights concerns. That said, implementation should be closely monitored for compliance with the Constitution and EU human rights standards. In sum, despite targeted improvements in transparency and case management, Portugal’s courts remain constrained by delays, staffing shortages, procedural gaps, and stalled reforms. Only sustained political resolve (paired with investment in personnel, infrastructure, and procedural streamlining) will allow the judiciary to discharge its constitutional role effectively and independently.

The climate transition emerges as another critical weakness identified by the Portuguese team. Commencing with enforcement, Portugal enacted the Climate Framework Law (Lei de Bases do Clima – Law no. 98/2021), which establishes carbon neutrality by 2050 as a binding objective. In force since 1 February 2022, the statute imposed a series of compliance deadlines on public authorities. However, implementation has proved uneven, culminating in a lawsuit filed in November 2023 by three NGOs alleging climactic inaction.[14] Empirical indicators reinforce this assessment: more than half of municipalities have yet to adopt the mandatory local mitigation and adaptation plans, and the government issued the carbon budgets only after a two-year delay.[15] Taken together, these shortcomings underscore a persistent disjuncture between legislative ambition and operational delivery. The report additionally concludes that recurrent political turnover, coupled with limited intergovernmental coordination between central and local authorities, erodes public trust and slows the effective enforcement of climate laws. Such policy slippage (manifest in delays and inconsistent implementation) reinforces perceptions of institutional unreliability and attenuated accountability.[16]

Although education and economic opportunity should function as engines of social mobility, the Portuguese team identified this domain as a weakness. That is because, despite measured progress,[17] persistent gaps (disproportionately affecting young people and those from disadvantaged backgrounds) continue to limit full participation in society and the economy. These deficits carry constitutional significance: they undermine core rule of law values, including equality, impartial treatment, and universal access to justice. In Portugal, the journey through higher education can still feel shaped by where one starts. Costs, distance from home, and uneven support quietly influence learning paths and the first steps into work, even as the legal framework signals broad ambitions. The task ahead seems less about new programs and more about steady habits: nurturing school cultures where inclusion is commonplace, ensuring that students persist and complete their studies, and facilitating the transition to decent work so that opportunities come to be experienced as routine rather than exceptional.[18] Formal equality is hollow if the conditions to exercise rights are unevenly distributed. When access to learning and dignified work tracks socioeconomic origin or migration status, legal guarantees lack effective force, undermining equality before the law and institutional legitimacy. Converting rights into usable entitlements thus requires system-wide inclusion in schools, credible study-to-work pathways, and enforcement that secures fair pay and safeguards.[19]

3.2. Strength

On the other hand, the topic identified as the key strength was press freedom as a democratic requirement. Portugal’s framework for media freedom rests on constitutional guarantees (Article 38), the Press Law (Law no. 2/99), the Television and On-Demand Services Law (Law no. 27/2007), and the Media Regulator Law (Law no. 53/2005). In March 2025, the government approved the national media literacy plan for 2025–2029 to counter disinformation and adopted a national action plan for the safety of journalists. At the EU level, the European Media Freedom Act (effective since May 2024 and fully applicable from August 2025) adds safeguards for editorial independence, journalist protection, public media funding, and market transparency. The Media Regulatory Authority (ERC) plays a central role in media literacy and resilience against disinformation.[20] Its work has been crucial for transparency and for giving constitutional guarantees practical effect in the media sphere. While ownership remains relatively concentrated, media pluralism exists and is widening, improving overall safeguards. Public service media still faces human and financial constraints. Rádio e Televisão de Portugal (RTP) – the Portuguese public service broadcasting organisation –, offers multiple channels and must keep adapting to shifting consumption patterns, modernising its digital offer, ensuring universal access, and fulfilling statutory duties such as media literacy. In comparative EU terms, an independent and effective RTP is a notable strength, even as persistent funding concerns remain.[21] In sum, Portugal’s commitment to free, pluralistic, and independent media remains a core pillar of democratic resilience. Despite pressures from disinformation and youth disengagement, this system is underpinned by constitutional guarantees, active regulation, and a capable public service broadcaster. Continued investment in media literacy and accessibility signals the capacity to adapt while safeguarding pluralism and independence.[22]

4. Gap analysis and recommendations

There was also a section that presented a gap analysis whose aim was to identify where the European Commission’s rule of law report recommendations converged with (or diverged from) the team’s findings on Portugal’s strengths and weaknesses, by contrasting the Commission’s stated priorities with evidence developed in earlier sections and assessing the (dis)connection with youth concerns. The comparison (2021–2024) reported clear alignment on structural capacity constraints in the justice system (namely persistent staffing shortages despite recent recruitment efforts) and on the mixed progress of judicial digitalisation, where procedural updates coexisted with uneven implementation and infrastructural deficits. Both sources were said to foreground transparency (legislative processes, media ownership, anti-corruption), which our report complemented with scrutiny of transparency in judicial proceedings.

The main divergence was described as one of scope: whereas the Commission prioritised institutional and procedural dimensions (judicial independence, checks and balances, anti-corruption), our analysis adopted a broader, rights-based lens incorporating climate policy, education and economic empowerment, and digital literacy as constitutive of the rule of law ecosystem. These omissions in official monitoring were therefore taken to indicate a need for a more future-oriented, cross-sectoral framework better reflecting youth priorities and the social conditions underpinning democratic governance.[23]

Finally, the team presented some recommendations, namely: to (1) establish a joint program by the Ministry of Justice, the High Council for the Judiciary and the Parliament to recruit and retain clerks and administrative staff; to (2) reassign workloads and deploy specialised judges to high-demand areas to improve case management; to (3) implement existing electronic justice reforms with targeted training, upgraded case-management systems, and continuous performance monitoring; to (4) formalise cooperation between the Ministry of Justice, the courts, and technology providers to convert reforms into operational gains; to (5) fund sustained legal, ethical, and interpersonal training and specialisation (family, criminal, juvenile) to enhance decision quality; to (6) embed practical financial literacy across the national curriculum or as a standalone course; to (7) expand public student accommodation, create targeted housing and mobility grants, and regulate rental prices in university areas to secure equal opportunity; to (8) require legally grounded local climate adaptation plans for every municipality with clear rules for execution, monitoring, and assessment; to (9) oblige municipalities to report against standardised indicators aligned with national and European Union climate objectives; and, finally, to (10) mandate a central body, such as the Portuguese Environment Agency, to provide guidance and ready-made templates to ensure consistent implementation.

5. Final considerations

The country teams, as well as the EU team, identified a balanced set of strengths and weaknesses. These assessments diverge across states, combining recurring themes with jurisdiction-specific issues. Read collectively, they yield a coherent, comparative picture of the challenges before the Member States (and Ukraine), distinguishing the common from the context bound.

The democracy rapporteurs’ message is clear: “without democracy, there is no EU of value. By mapping both weaknesses and promising practices, they offer concrete solutions for policymakers, journalists, and citizens to defend and renew democracy.”[24] As Judge Filipe Marques noted in his opinion piece on the “Our Democracy Report”, the democracy rapporteurs demonstrate that, although the younger generations have not experienced the horrors of war, they will not allow the drive for integration to fade.[25]

Note: #TakeDemocracySeriously is the hashtag resulting from the press release announcing the report’s publication. Our Rule of Law Foundation, “Our democracy report – press release”, 8 September 2025. Available at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xYK5Tle8FMkczDO_KgWoNm_KrUcp6x3ZkVgS8dLppIA/edit?tab=t.0#hea, accessed on 14 October 2025.

[1] See European Commission, “2025 Rule of law report – Communication and country chapters”, 8 July 2025. Available at: https://commission.europa.eu/publications/2025-rule-law-report-communication-and-country-chapters_en.

[2] European Commission, “2025 Rule of law report: the importance of the rule of law for Europe’s democracy, security and economy”, 8 July 2025. Available at: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_25_1742, accessed 7 October 2025. 

[3] Our Rule of Law Foundation, “About us.” Available at: https://www.ourruleoflaw.eu/about-us, accessed on 7 October 2025. Founded in 2021 at the University of Groningen by first-year law students Anna Walczak, Elene Amiranashvili and Zuzanna Uba together with Professor John Morijn, the “Our Rule of Law Foundation” grew out of a lecture on democratic backsliding in Poland and aims to cultivate a community of engaged students united by shared values.

[4] Our Rule of Law Foundation, “About the Project.” Available at: https://www.ourruleoflaw.eu/about-the-project, accessed 8 October 2025.

[5] Our Rule of Law Foundation, “About the Project.”

[6] Our Rule of Law Foundation, “Our democracy report – Portugal”, Descriptive Introduction,  310. 8 September 2025. Available at: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1hs0UUcnewJCuEapOMbBWPXiAziUmc_k4, accessed 8 October 2025.

[7] Our Rule of Law Foundation, “Our democracy report – Portugal”, Commission assessment and recommendations, 312. 8 September 2025. Available at: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1hs0UUcnewJCuEapOMbBWPXiAziUmc_k4, accessed 8 October 2025.

[8] OECD, “Modernisation of the justice sector in Portugal.” 20 June 2024. Available at: https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/modernisation-of-the-justice-sector-in-portugal_cbde9a7a-en/full-report.html, accessed June 2025.

[9] European Commission, “2024 EU Justice scoreboard – Publications Office of the European Union 2024.” Fig. 9. 11 June 2024. Available at: https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/policies/justice-and-fundamental-rights/upholding-rule-law/eu-justice-scoreboard_en, accessed June 2025.

[10] European Commission, “2024 EU Justice scoreboard – Publications Office of the European Union 2024.” Fig. 9.

[11] European Commission, “2024 Rule of law report: country chapter on the rule of law situation in Portugal.” 24 July 2024. Available at: https://commission.europa.eu/publications/2024-rule-law-report-communication-and-country-chapters_en, accessed 10 June 2025.

[12] OECD, “Modernisation of the justice sector in Portugal.” 20 June 2024. Available at: https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/modernisation-of-the-justice-sector-in-portugal_cbde9a7a-en/full-report.html, accessed 16 June 2025.

[13] RTP, “Ministra da Justiça refuta críticas e garante segurança de plataforma informática”. 11 December 2017. Available at: https://www.rtp.pt/noticias/pais/ministra-da-justica-refuta-criticas-e-garante-seguranca-de-plataforma-informatica_n1062609, accessed 13 June 2025.

[14] Diário da República, Lei de Bases do Clima – Lei nº 98/2021 de 31 de dezembro, Artigo 81.º (Article 81). 31 December 2021.

[15] OECD, “OECD Environmental Performance Reviews: Portugal 2023”,  98. 14 March 2023. Available at: https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/oecd-environmental-performance-reviews-portugal-2023_d9783cbf-en/full-report.html, accessed 10 June 2025.

[16] Our Rule of Law Foundation, “Our democracy report – Portugal”, Descriptive Introduction, 316. 8 September 2025. Available at: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1hs0UUcnewJCuEapOMbBWPXiAziUmc_k4, accessed 10 October 2025.

[17] Instituto Nacional de Estatística, “5.SUPERMAT (European Statistics Competition 2023)”, 2023. Available at: https://www.ine.pt/scripts/esc2023/5.SUPERMAT.pdf, accessed 26 May 2025.

[18] OECD, “Review of inclusive education in Portugal (OECD Publishing, 2022). Available at: https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/review-of-inclusive-education-in-portugal_a9c95902-en.html&ust=1760173860000000&usg=AOvVaw16e0rcDwixwfrUykoWHBHa&hl=pt-PT, accessed 26 May 2025.

[19] Our Rule of Law Foundation, “Our democracy report – Portugal”, Descriptive Introduction, 319. 8 September 2025. Available at: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1hs0UUcnewJCuEapOMbBWPXiAziUmc_k4, accessed 10 October 2025.

[20] In particular, Law no. 19/2023 of 12 May 2006, which extends the scope of Law no.  95/2015.

[21] European Commission, “2023 rule of law report: country chapter on the rule of law situation in Portugal”, 20. 5 July 2023. Available at: https://commission.europa.eu/publications/2023-rule-law-report-communication-and-country-chapters_en, accessed 10 June 2025.

[22] Our Rule of Law Foundation, “Our democracy report – Portugal”, Descriptive Introduction, 322. 8 September 2025. Available at: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1hs0UUcnewJCuEapOMbBWPXiAziUmc_k4, accessed 10 October 2025.

[23] Our Rule of Law Foundation, “Our democracy report – Portugal”, Descriptive Introduction, 324. 8 September 2025. Available at: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1hs0UUcnewJCuEapOMbBWPXiAziUmc_k4, accessed 10 October 2025.

[24] Our Rule of Law Foundation, “The report.” Available at: https://www.ourruleoflaw.eu/about-the-project, accessed 13 October 2025.

[25] Filipe Marques, “O Estado (e o futuro) da União Europeia”, Público. 13 September 2025. Available at: https://www.publico.pt/2025/09/13/opiniao/opiniao/estado-futuro-uniao-europeia-2146947, accessed  13 October 2025.

Picture credit: by Tara Winstead on pexels.com.