Coronavirus: Impact of the exceptional and temporary measures on enforcement proceedings

The World Health Organization declared an international public health emergency and then a global pandemic due to the new Coronavirus (SARS-CV-2) pandemic and the disease COVID-19. Faced with this emergency and in response to the impacts that are being felt, a number of exceptional measures were introduced in the justice sector. These measures were set out in Law 1-A/2020 of 18 March and Decree‑Law 10-A/2020 of 13 March. With the amendments introduced by Law 4-A/2020 of 6 April, they established among others, exceptional rules on the extension of time limits and of the periods to take judicial steps.

With the end of the state of emergency, and following the phased ending of the lockdown that began on 30 April, Law 16/2020 was published on May 29. This Law makes changes to the exceptional and temporary measures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and introduces the fourth amendment to Law 1-A/2020 of 19 March.