Countries are facing a pandemic crisis in the context of a new disease from the coronavirus family, referred to as COVID-19. This article aims to present the main facts related to the fight against the pandemic from the perspective of the Portuguese governance, aiming to contribute to the knowledge of crisis management by political leaders as well as the performance of public entities. The present research was conducted through a quantitative approach, using data publicly provided by the Portuguese Directorate General of Health. An explanatory and descriptive study is presented about the current panorama, and yet to be shared good practices of crisis management and the relevance of organizational values in crisis management and crisis coordination are also discussed. Based on the lessons from Portugal, the authors suggest the relevance of organizational values and stakeholders’ coordination as key factors in crisis situations, such as the current one.

Judges are the central actors in the organization and functioning of the judicial system. Concerns about work efficiency, driven by the European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice, led countries to adopt a set of reforms in line with private sector ideals applied to the public field to better manage their financial and human resources. In the last decades, the Portuguese judicial system has undergone a reform based on New Public Management principles by adopting the new Law on the Organization of the Judiciary System (LOSJ), significantly altering judges’ duties, who beyond their traditional role of applying the law, perform the additional role of court-of-law judge-manager. The objective of this study is to explore the influence of role conflict and role ambiguity in occupational burnout among judges and to analyze the influence of calling orientation as a moderating variable, so as to present a conceptual model of role-stress management among the judiciary. Theoretically, this work contributes to the literature on role-stress management through its introduction of calling moderation, as well as to the literature on the positive influence of calling on burnout. In terms of its practical implications, the work contributes to a reconsideration of the current organizational structure of judicial work.

The new coronavirus caught governments all over the world completely unaware, which led to a set of different and sometimes not quite articulated responses, leading to some undesirable results. The present investigation is based on three objectives: to assess the conditions “before” and “during” the combat and the expected consequences “after” the outbreak, by having as reference the Portuguese case; to offer a framework of the input factors to crisis management in the pandemic context; and to contribute to the crisis management literature, in the public sector from a perspective of collaborative and multi-level governance. This research is inductive and follows a quantitative approach, with the proposal and testing of a crisis management COVID-19 structural model. The Portuguese case presented in this paper suggests a robust and valid crisis management model. This model may be well translated for other countries with cultural proximity to the Portuguese culture, for instance, Portuguese speaking countries such as Brazil, or geographical proximity to Portugal such as, for instance, Spain. The authors, nevertheless, advise readers to exert some restraint on the extrapolation of the results, as governance systems and traditions can vary a good deal from country to country. Future studies should focus on the importance of coordination as one of the most important areas in crisis management, narrowing the scope of analysis from the broad, macro understanding of the research problem presented on this paper.

Objective: To develop a mapping of studies on innovation and digital transformation in the justice sector, publishes from 2001 to 2022. Five research questions were defined: 1) How to define innovation and digital transformation introduced in the justice sector? 2) What types of innovations and digital transformations are implemented in the justice sector? 3) What are the objectives of introducing innovation and digital transformation in the justice sector? 4) What are the antecedents that influence the process of innovation and digital transformation in the justice sector? 5) What are the results of the innovation and digital transformation process in the justice sector?Methods: The systematic review of sources (scientific articles, conference proceedings, monographs and institutional documents) presented in this paper was conducted in accordance with the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) protocol. Selected by “research field”, “topic”, “research design”, “year of publication” and the keywords “public administration”, “public sector”, “e-justice”, “digital transformation”, and “innovation”, the sources were analyzed and evaluated according to five main aspects: (1) definition of innovation; (2) types of innovation; (3) objectives of innovation; (4) antecedents of innovation; and (5) results of innovation.Results: The heuristic model for studying innovation in the public sector developed by Vries et al. (2015) was adapted and applied to the research field of justice. The adaptation of the heuristic model allowed forming the following areas of analysis: contextual antecedents in justice; institutional antecedents in justice; characteristics of innovation and digital transformation in justice; individual antecedents in justice; types of innovation and digital transformation in justice; results of the process of innovation and digital transformation in justice.Scientific novelty: a comprehensive review of the literature in the field of innovation and digital transformation in justice is presented by adapting the approach to conducting systematic studies of the literature in the social sciences. It helped to identify gaps and define directions for further research in the given field, including the activation of comparative legal research, expansion of the methodological base, reliance on the theories of public administration, etc.Practical significance: the obtained results allow forming a heuristic map of innovation and digital transformation in justice, create antecedents (contextual, institutional and individual) and the basis for future empirical research in the field of justice, analysis, evaluation and improvement of public policy in the field of innovation and digital transformation in this area.

This paper aims to describe the satisfaction and loyalty of citizens towards the sustainability of Portuguese courts. This research was carried out under the Portuguese justice agenda named “Justice + Closer” between the years of 2017, 2018, and 2019. The methodological approach adopted was quantitative. Based on the literature review, a structural model of the relationships between the dimensions that directly and indirectly influence citizen satisfaction and loyalty was adapted from the arbitration centers to the court’s reality. Data collection was carried out during the three years mentioned—in person at the Portuguese Campus of Justice and also through questionnaires applied online. In the course of the three years, 3276 observations were collected. Through structural equation modeling, it was possible to measure positive relations produced between seven established dimensions. The results of this study contribute generally to applied research in the field of justice administration and to the understanding of this topic by those in the academic sector where it has been superficially addressed. Related future investigations might include a comparative study between the satisfaction and loyalty of citizens with (i) the formal adjudication processes and case outcomes of the Portuguese courts and (ii) alternative dispute-resolution processes and case outcome means reached by recognized arbitration and mediation centers, judges of peace, and related ADR services.

Society has undergone an entire evolution in the field of criminal penalties, as people want to avoid, or ideally to extinguish, crime and consequent victimization. However, the human nature would hardly allow such utopian society to prevail. Hence, as individuals, we do have codes and bylaws that govern our society. The number of male prisoners is considerably higher in comparison to female prisoners. The aim of the present research is to analyze the sex inequality in the Portuguese criminal justice system, as well as to discuss the following questions: (i) Are men suffering from unjustifiable discrimination by the criminal system? Or, (ii) are there any physical and psychological differences between both sexes? A quantitative and qualitative approach was used. A legal framework was created regarding penalty enforcement, followed by a review of the literature approaching themes of criminology, victimization, and sex inequality. To enrich and empirically support this research, the statistics provided by the Directorate-General for Justice Policy of the Ministry of Portuguese Justice are presented, and a descriptive analysis on the evolution of the number of inmates in Portuguese prisons and juveniles detained in educational centers, between 2010 and 2019 was performed. Implications of this study are is discussed to highlight mediation in criminal cases as a neutral future.