There will be a moment, unfortunately, when we will have to start going backwards, subtracting. It won’t be possible to simply add. This will involve recognizing, understanding and uncompromisingly defending what is fundamental. But it will also mean doing away with what will become superfluous, unnecessary or simply too expensive. In the game of choices – and, even in Portugal, they will have to be made.
The development of Artificial Intelligence and tools that change the nature and function of human contribution, on the one hand, and, on the other, the accelerated uncertainty that the 21st century presents, regarding international institutions and concerts or economic instability and environmental risks, will force these changes. Even in Portugal, where the strongly corporate society that came from the Estado Novo (and, in fact, long before) remained, where any change is only made with the absolute approval of the different landlords in each sector, regardless of the government or parliamentary majority.
Take, for example, the reality of Health or Justice, perhaps the most complete models of theoretically public-based systems, but in which the workers themselves command and pretend to change. And, yes, we talk about doctors, nurses, judges, lawyers and prosecutors. There is practically no speech coming from corporations, whether unions or professionals (and, in these sectors, they are all unfortunately indistinct) that dispenses with the clamor for more – more money, more people, more resources. And, no, this does not necessarily represent a demand for better public benefits as a result.
The fact that in Portugal, according to data from the Council of Europe, there are 14 Public Prosecutors per 100 thousand inhabitants and in these third world countries such as Spain or France, an admissible comparison given their judicial models and litigation profiles, there are 5 and 3 prosecutors per 100 thousand inhabitants, does not seem to cause any curiosity among us (or 4 per 100 thousand, in Italy, by the way). Or the fact that there are 19 judges per 100,000 inhabitants, which compares to 11 in those two contiguous countries. It is admitted, however, that the idealized national model is that of countries like Bulgaria or Moldova, where the number of public prosecutors reaches 24 per 100 thousand inhabitants, with results in criminal prosecution, in fact, that are quite notable…
In no way, however, did these glaring differences force Parliaments and governments to seriously consider alternatives to simply adding people, regardless of the variation in the number of existing legal processes, the management models tested or the work tools used.
Hence, in a territory as small as ours, coexist in public systems – and, also there, Justice and Health are unfortunately good examples – such disparate realities and levels of service, with an inequality that is difficult to justify other than due to the lack of autonomy of decision makers.
Public decision-making seems to be an enormous conflict of interests, in which everything ends up leading back, in a very simplistic way, to ensuring that a judge, a prosecutor, a doctor, a nurse, a teacher – effectively has another place in a public system, whether necessary or not, is placed “close to home” and progresses. the training of jurists and there continues to be no provision south of Lisbon or in the autonomous regions.
A middle ground must be found between the modern slavery of outsourcing services to private parties and the cannibalization of public systems by their own agents. And there would be: it’s called political courage.
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