Here is part of the document translated.
' Our translation from page 9, onwards:
The applicants alluded to the “ostensible contradiction of grounds”, because in the acórdão it was considered that the archiving of the crime process was determined because it was not possible for the Public Ministry to obtain sufficient evidence of the practice of crimes by the applicants, while in the archiving dispatch what is said is that it occurred "because there existed no indicia that they have committed any crime, in terms of the provisions of Article 277 no. 1 of the CPP."
It will be stated, immediately, that the nullity invoked consists in there being contradiction between the grounds and the decision and not between the grounds.
In any case, it will always be said that the invoked contradiction doesn’t exist because, in our view, although the archiving dispatch alludes to the provisions of Article 277 nº1 (note that point 15 of the proven factual matter does not include the reference to that article), what is relevant is the content of the dispatch and not the citation of the legal provision.
Now, what stands out, manifestly, from that dispatch is that it was not issued because the Public Ministry had acquired the conviction that the applicants did not commit any crime, but because it was not possible for the Public Ministry to obtain sufficient indicia of the practice of crime by the applicants.
That is, the archiving will have been determined under Article 277 nº2 of the CPP, and not under nº1, of that article, although the latter is the article quoted in the dispatch.
Because of that it was understood, in the acórdão, that it would not seem acceptable to consider that the referred dispatch should be equated as evidence of inocentation [inocentação].
In fact, it is not said anywhere in that dispatch, that there was collected enough proof that no crime was committed or that the then defendants (now applicants) did not practice it in any way. (as per Art. 277, nº. 1).
The fact that the "Note for the Media” issued by the PGR on the same day the archiving dispatch was issued informs that the inquiry could be reopened "if new elements of proof appeared which would originate to serious, pertinent and consequential diligences", points out, precisely, to the conclusion that the dispatch was issued under the provisions of article 277, nº2 of the CPP.
In fact, if the inquiry had been closed under the provisions of nº2 of the same article, it could not be reopened (as per CPP, commented, 2016, 2nd edition, by Henriques Gaspar, Santos Cabral, Maia Costa, Oliveira Mendes, Pereeira Madeira e Henriques da Graça, pgs 929, 932 and 933).
In any event, it was only intended to counter the applicants' assertion that, with the alluded dispatch, had been made proof of the inocentation.
Thus, in one way or another, whatever the grounds for the archiving of the inquiry and the preclusive effects of the respective decision (the latter has no "judged case" strength, which reports exclusively to decisions of a jurisdictional nature, but that of a "decided case" or "almost judged case" ” – as per the quoted pgs 929 e 932), we would always understand that public criticism and public scrutiny of the functioning of justice, as stated in the acórdão, were not impeded.
That is, we would always conclude that the principle of presumption of innocence would not be relevant for the decision on the question that was to be decided.
It will therefore be concluded that the acórdão doesn’t suffer with the nullities of b) and c) of the nº1 of artº 616º of the CPC, applicable ex vi of the combined provisions of arts 666º, nº1 and 685º of the same Code.
By what was said, the argumentation of nullities of pgs 2793 and following is rejected, sentencing the applicants in the costs of the incident that caused them. '
This can be seen at the bottom of the comments section on this link
https://textusa.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/the-3rd-big-surprise.html
