Administrative justice in times of emergency and calamity

Abstract

The paper addresses four points of intersection between the state of emergency (and the subsequent situation of calamity) that has legally framed he public response to the most critical phase of the COVID-19 pandemic in Portugal and the administrative justice: (i) the way — if any — through which the declaration of the state of emergency/situation of calamity interfered, by itself and directly, in the fundamental right of access to administrative courts; (ii) the main procedural adaptation measures that conditioned the proceedings within administrative courts during that period; (iii) the role exercised by administrative courts in the judicial review of acts of exception; and (iv) the foreseeable future of some aspects of the functioning of administrative justice in the scenario – which hopefully it is now starting – of post-pandemic economic and social recovery.