Today, we bring you the Nationality edition of our Fact-Check.

Recently, campaigns have been circulating targeting people with Portuguese nationality applications pending for more than 12 months, suggesting that there is an innovative legal strategy to speed up these cases.

This claim needs context.

There is, indeed, a judicial mechanism to react against delays by the IRN in nationality proceedings. But this mechanism is not new, it is not a recent legal discovery, and it does not guarantee that the application will be decided faster.

In most cases, we are referring to an administrative action for an order to perform the legally due act, provided for in Articles 66 et seq. of the Portuguese Code of Procedure in the Administrative Courts.

This mechanism allows the applicant to ask the court to order the Administration to perform an act that should already have been performed. In the context of nationality proceedings, this may mean asking the court to order the IRN to decide an application that has been pending beyond the applicable procedural deadlines.

This mechanism has existed for a long time. It is not an innovative strategy.

But does this action speed up the process?

It may. But there is no guarantee that it will.

This is the essential point.

An administrative action for an order to perform the legally due act may lead the court to order the IRN to decide the application within a specific period. In some cases, this may have a useful effect. In others, the administrative decision may be issued before the court gives its judgment. And in others, the court action itself may remain pending for years.

Presenting this mechanism as an automatic, guaranteed, or especially innovative solution is misleading.

The right question is not: “Has your application been pending for more than 12 months?”

The right question is: “In your specific case, considering the filing date, the type of application, the current status of the case, the average processing time in the relevant department, the possible existence of pending inquiries, the specific urgency, and the cost of going to court, does it make sense to bring an action?”

The answer can only be given on a case-by-case basis.

And what about the injunction for the protection of rights, freedoms and guarantees?

Here too, precision is needed.

The injunction for the protection of rights, freedoms and guarantees is an urgent procedure. It became highly relevant in residence permit cases, especially in light of AIMA delays that left people without a valid residence card, with a direct impact on freedom of movement, work, documentary stability and family life.

But in nationality proceedings, the context is very different from pending AIMA cases.

The right to nationality is a fundamental right, but the mere breach of regulatory deadlines does not automatically create the urgency required to use this injunction.

There are cases where this injunction may be appropriate: for example, where advanced age, serious illness or another concrete fact creates the risk that the procedure will lose its usefulness if it is not decided quickly.

But that does not turn the injunction into the normal route for all delayed nationality applications.

What should you know before moving forward?

Before going to court, you should keep a few simple points in mind.

First: there is a proper judicial mechanism to react against IRN delays.

Second: that mechanism is not new. It is a standard administrative action, long provided for in administrative litigation, not a newly discovered legal strategy.

Third: official Justice statistics for the administrative and tax courts confirm that the average duration of cases in this jurisdiction is measured in years, and may exceed five years in certain types of proceedings. Therefore, the existence of a quick decision in one specific case does not mean that all similar actions will be decided within the same timeframe.

Fourth: quick judicial decisions concerning recent cases have been the exception, not the rule. There is no guarantee that the court will decide faster than the Registry Office.

Fifth: the decision to proceed must be made case by case, after weighing costs, likely timing, concrete urgency and the actual status of the application.

Final verdict: partially misleading.

State delays are a serious problem. But the response to that problem should not be sold as a promise of results. If someone guarantees that this judicial mechanism will automatically speed up your application in useful time, they are misleading you.

It should be presented for what it is: a legitimate legal tool, potentially useful, but without automatic guarantees of acceleration.