Minister of Justice Catarina Sarmento has come up with a solution for the ongoing ‘lack of paper’ frustrating the day-to-day running of the courts system. “My objective is to work so that paper ceases to be necessary”, she answered PSD social democrat Mónica Quintela in parliament. “There is a long list of acts that are already processed electronically. The desirable thing is that in these situations no paper is used, freeing up resources for other situations…” Digitalisation being another avenue out of this chronic shortage. The situation comes at a time when the Justice system’s paper famine has apparently already stretched to judges being asked to bring their own lavatory paper to work with them. As a television satirist joked on Sunday, “in the past, we would see a man with a roll of lavatory paper under his arm and think ‘poor thing, he is homeless. Now we have to accept that he could be a learned judge…’
