Lisbon, March 25, 2026 (Lusa) - At the end of 2025, Portugal had three European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) decisions pending, with the compensation payment deadlines set by the court exceeded by more than six months, according to a report released on Wednesday.
The 2025 annual report on the monitoring of the execution of ECHR decisions by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, the body responsible for supervising the effectiveness of sentences, states that in 2025, Portugal paid the full amount of compensation ordered in 16 cases. However, the Committee was awaiting confirmation of compliance in three cases in which the deadline for the ECHR decision had been exceeded by more than 6 months.
In total, at the end of last year, there were 10 cases with compensation payments still to be confirmed by Portugal. The report further notes that of the payments made in 2025, seven were outside the timeframe stipulated by the court.
In 2025, the ECHR ordered the Portuguese state to pay compensation exceeding €209,000.
Among the main Portuguese cases analysed by the Committee is the case of preventive detention applied to a defendant found not criminally responsible due to psychiatric illness. The individual was held in inadequate conditions without appropriate treatment, despite a court order for transfer to a psychiatric institution – a case mentioned in the previous report.
This case, one of 33 closed in 2025, was examined by the Committee of Ministers, which "noted positively" the national strategy that "aimed to prioritise therapeutic care over incarceration." This includes the new 2023 mental health law, which aligns national legislation with international standards, and the inclusion of prison system medical care under the health service (SNS).
The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe received 16 new Portuguese cases for supervision of sentence execution, fewer than the 20 received in 2024 and the 17 in 2023.
"Of the new violations [of the European Convention on Human Rights] sanctioned by the ECHR in 2025, the majority concerned detention conditions and freedom of expression," according to the report, which indicates that these are the infractions that weigh most heavily among the 39 pending cases at the end of last year.
Overcrowding and poor detention conditions, violations of the right to freedom of expression involving convictions and fines for defamation, and the excessive duration of proceedings in civil and administrative jurisdictions are the most significant infractions among pending cases.
Regarding pending matters, the report again refers to a case concerning "the continuous imposition of a high-security detention regime with restrictive measures, including frequent body searches, without demonstrating that it remains necessary."
The 39 pending cases recorded in 2025 are fewer than the 56 in 2024 and the 48 in 2023. Of those 39, five were lead cases classified as urgent procedures, and two had been awaiting resolution for more than 5 years. Among 13 lead cases classified as regular procedures, eight had been waiting for a conclusion for more than five years.
Lead cases are those identified as raising new issues before the court that were not previously addressed, revealing problems that are often structural or systemic. "Repetitive cases" refer to issues that have been addressed and are frequently grouped with a lead case. The "urgent procedure" classification applies to cases where urgent individual measures are required or where significant structural problems are revealed.
Last year, Portugal submitted 10 action plans for compliance with court decisions, three implementation reports, and one communication to the Committee of Ministers.
IMA/RYOL // ADB.
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