News
27 September 2025in Advocatus
Lawyers appointed as defendants without suspicion in the TAP case. What does the law allow?

TAP was the object of searches following an investigation by the Public Prosecutor's Office (MP) into compensation paid to Alexandra Reis, former TAP administrator. The law firm SRS Legal, which for years was responsible for advising TAP on labour issues, was also the object of searches. As a result, lawyer and partner César Sá Esteves was named as a defendant in the case. The searches focused on electronic correspondence relating to 2022, the year in which Alexandra Reis was awarded compensation.

However, the fact that the lawyer is a defendant does not indicate that there are any suspicions regarding his actions. And this is not an isolated case. In other words: searches of law firms to seize correspondence, hard drives, computers or documentation in which lawyers are named as defendants so that the judicial authorities have access to the evidence of those lawyers' clients without there being serious and strong evidence of any criminal offence.

What does the law allow?

 

Bruno Melo Alves, partner at Melo Alves, was one of the lawyers interviewed by Advocatus and explains that "what case law has repeatedly emphasised is the need to avoid abuse in this area. In particular, situations have been censured in which the defendant is named solely as a means of circumventing professional secrecy and allowing the seizure of correspondence, without there being any consistent evidence against the lawyer. 
In such cases, the courts have ordered the return of the seized documents and pointed out that professional secrecy is not a formal barrier, but an essential guarantee for the practice of law and citizens' trust in the justice system. Subverting this protection through procedural manoeuvres weakens fundamental rights and compromises the credibility of justice itself."

 

To read the full article, click here.

 

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