Do acordo de colaboração à sentença premial

: contributo para o desenvolvimento de um novo paradigma processual penal

Abstract

The current Portuguese penal system provides for a reward system that can be used by the perpetrator of criminally relevant facts in the event of collaboration to discover the material truth. However, criminal procedural legislation has not kept up with this evolution, and there is no legal provision for the collaborator to use as a guarantee that this contribution to the discovery of the truth will be valued when determining the measure of the sentence in the context of a conviction. In fact, the legislator felt the need to provide the procedural system with a system that would ensure that any collaborative contribution made by the defendant would be reflected in the judgement phase. Thus, Article 283(3)(c) of the CPP (as amended by Law 94/2021 of 21 December) establishes that the indictment must contain, under penalty of nullity, in addition to all the relevant facts for the possible application of the penalty waiver institute or special mitigation of the penalty. It seems to us that this system is insufficient, as it leaves the description of these facts exclusively in the hands of the prosecutor, with the defendant having no decision-making capacity in this area. The CPP should therefore be equipped with an award mechanism of consensus to be established between the defendant (duly represented by a defender) and the public prosecutor in order to guarantee that the investigation includes a description of all the collaborative behaviour adopted by the defendant. This mechanism should also include the participation of the JIC, which will be responsible for homologation. Rather than presenting a specific proposal in the context of the right to be constituted, this study aims to participate in a discussion that is already underway in order to contribute to the acceptance of the idea that it is necessary to implement criminal procedural guarantees in the context of the investigation that the defendant can later take advantage of in the trial pha

Date of Award	13 Oct 2025
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Germano Marques da Silva (Supervisor)