Lisbon- Portugal's judicial system came under criticism Wednesday as the country's longest ever trial, a high-profile child abuse case, marked its fifth anniversary, with no end in sight. Seven people, including prominent personalities, are charged with sexually abusing or allowing the abuse of 32 children at the state- owned Casa Pia care homes.
"When the accused are people with economic power and have good lawyers," they are able to artificially extend trials, said Boaventura Sousa Santos, president of the Permanent Observatory of Justice.
Judges should have more power to prevent such "manoeuvres," Sousa Santos said.
Casa Pia lawyer Miguel Matias said the length of the trial was "despairing for the victims."
About 1,000 witnesses or experts have been heard so far in the nearly 450 sessions at four different courtrooms, producing more than 60,000 pages of documents.
The trial was believed to be nearing an end in 2008, but moves by defence lawyers lengthened proceedings. Most recently, court president Ana Peres agreed to change times and places of some of the alleged crimes in prosecution documents.
The trial could still go on for at least six months, said Ricardo Sa Fernandes, lawyer for one of the accused, television presenter Carlos Cruz.
Also charged are a former ambassador, a medical doctor, a lawyer, two former Casa Pia employees and a woman in whose house sex orgies allegedly took place.
Only one of the accused, former Casa Pia employee Carlos Silvino, has pleaded guilty. He is charged with dozens of cases of abuse and with procuring children for others against payment.
Charges were dropped against three other people earlier on in the trial, including a former labour minister.
The scandal broke in November 2002 when a media report began uncovering the alleged abuse of children, most of them boys, over several decades. The trial deals with cases from 1999-2000.
Evidence of abuse at the Casa Pia homes surfaced in the 1980s, but investigations were dropped and documents disappeared in what many believe was a cover-up.
