Lawyers criticize ‘excessive use’ of preventive detention

Leonel Alves

Local lawyers agree on the topic of detention, claiming that there is an excessive use of the preventive detention measures. The remark was made on the sidelines of the launch of a book by João Miguel Barros, “The Judiciary System (noted)” [Sistema Judiciário (Anotado) the original version].
This week’s book launch at the Portuguese Consulate-General building was attended by a large number of professionals from the judicial sector.
“I think there are too many [people in preventive detention] and I think it is important to start with the idea in Macau that alternatives need to be found,” said the lawyer and book author Barros to Lusa news agency commenting on the given current figures.
According to the figures provided to the same agency by the Correctional Service Bureau (DSC), 20.8 percent of the total number of people serving time are people who are preventively arrested.
In agreement with Barros, lawyer and legislator Leonel Alves told TDM that “the trivialization of the use of the one heavier coercive measures,” is censurable. He argued that the preventive detention is more understandable in cases when people involved in crime are non-residents and there is a serious concern that they might try to escape justice.
As for suggestions to review the measure Barros said that “in Portugal, the use of the electronic bracelet had a wide circulation and therefore I think it can be an interesting alternative.”
Lawyer Maria Amélia António also voiced her disagreement with the alleged excessive use of preventive detention: “Macau has excellent conditions to use other control measures. What Portugal has implemented a number of years ago, the electronic bracelet, could be implemented here because Macau has a [limited geographical] size and a control over the borders, and hence there are optimal conditions for this system,” she said, as cited by Ponto Final newspaper. RM