Happy new year everyone
@mrcbmth
Any news on your case from IAMA or from your lawyer MEF on the delay
Thanks
Yeah, a couple weeks after my lawyer saying it was unnecessary, now I got an email from IAS (my law firm) saying we are all required to update the documents. Just fyi for anybody else reading through this.
We already have a lawsuit filed to get them to give us a biometrics appointment, curious how this will affect things. Maybe a everybody really does get an automatic biometric appointment and the lawsuit is unnecessary. Hopefully there isnāt just a multi-year backlog for that that develops 
I predict that this will cause the chronological application queue processing to be replaced by āorder of fresh documentsā processing, and then the backlog will be huge but in an order that fā ā ā s over people who have been waiting years already.
1 Like
While I have similar apprehensions but any progress is better than no progress.
Maybe we have different definitions of āprogressā, but adding barriers ā they clearly want people to fail to upload fresh documents so they can cancel their application, post-investment i might add ā and shuffling the queue seems like the opposite to me.
Hope I am wrong!
3 Likes
And doubly disadvantages Americans who have been waiting years, since the US criminal record apostille takes the longest to come back. Hooray!!
1 Like
If you get a biometrics appointment in like 2 months in advance, how do you have time to both get a new FBI background check AND apostille if you are American? That process could easily take more than 2 months! Is that just a risk you run and youāre screwed if you canāt get it in time for your biometrics appointment?
Advice we gave for a while was to keep a rolling application for an apostille/etc, so that you are ready for an appointment on a momentās notice.
A little pricey and annoying, but better than scrambling for docs at the last second
2 Likes
The āso-called AIMA Proceedingsā 
- Data provided to PĆBLICO Brasil by the Supreme Administrative Court indicate that, in the Administrative Court of the Lisbon District alone:
ā 10,046 lawsuits were filed against AIMA in October of last year [2024], an average of 436.8 per day.
ā In November, there were 11,480 more lawsuits, with a daily average of 574. From one month to the next, there was a 14.3% increase in lawsuits.
ā The information for December has not yet been consolidated.- The biggest problem lies with the court officials, who have been holding up notifications of decisions made by judges, even those classified as urgent. According to the press office of the Supreme Administrative Court (STA), the problems āwere not created by the courtsā, which suffer from IT failures and a shortage of staff.
- There are approximately 450,000 pending cases [at AIMA]
- The Supreme Court, however, assures that an effort has been made to try to overcome the bottlenecks and provide a response to society. The moves in this direction have been directed, above all, to the 6th type of proceedings ā summons for the defense of rights, freedoms and guarantees ā mainly to the āso-called AIMA Proceedingsā, since there are ānumerous complaints filed with the Superior Council of Administrative and Tax Courts and directly with the Presidency of the Courtā
@momo under the new process, you donāt receive your biometrics before all the documents have been certified as being completed and uploaded to the portal. You donāt need to refresh these again at the time of the biometrics appointment.
Takes about under a month
From one backlog to anotherā¦ I donāt think anybodyās surprised
- last year [2024] 54,222 so-called 6th Type processes were filed with the Lisbon District Administrative Court, related to (AIMA)
- in 2024, 7,973 procedures were concluded
If i am reading this correctly, they are concluding 21 cases per day, but adding 436 new cases per day to the queue. What is the point of filing a lawsuit and more important, how does Portugal plan to protect the rights of persons affected if there is no judicial outlet available and AIMA refuses to act?
2 Likes
now people are taking court cases in order to get biometric appointments or cards. But by end of this year, same people will start upgrading their actions by putting another 2nd case so that their 1st case will be seen by the court! 
6 Likes
Below is from a marketing piece, so take it with a grain of salt. But if true, some interesting stats:
- As of February 4th, 2025, there were approximately 50,046 pending AIMA subpoenas at the end of January, specifically as of January 31st.
- Despite this high total, the subpoenas in January showed a decline, with a daily average of 335 cases at AIMA.
- To put this in perspective, the daily average at AIMA was 536 cases in November 2024 and 404 cases in December 2024.
Their timeline for āHow Do Subpoenas Work?ā is so far from reality itās hilarious - start to finish in about 2 weeks?? They do slightly caveat it with "In practice, however, due to a backlog of court cases, the process may take longer. This is because there are only two overburdened bailiffs handling more than 50,000 cases. "
2 Likes
What is the consensus with regarding to the lawsuits and the āstreamlined AIMA process to schedule biometrics in 1 monthā?
Before the āstreamlined processā and request for updating of documents, there were quite a few successful lawsuits during the end of 2024. But, now did lawsuits just halted? Iāve seen no updates
I think the ones who did not get an appointment due to Court process delays have wasted their money.
Our appeal was accepted into the Higher Court of Lisbon last Sept/Oct, have seen zero progress since. The 50,000+ pending subpoenas vs. 2 bailiffs mentioned two posts above probably explains why.
Iāve written before about how Iām not sure it was our lawsuit that got us a Dec. 2024 Bios appointment - or just incessant badgering of AIMA by our attorneys.
Itās now over 2 months since our Bios, and no word from AIMA on final approval or cards. Some people said lawsuits helped them along hereā¦ weāre not feeling that.
That said, I donāt know how āthe streamlined processā will pan out, given last weekās AIMA confirmation that GV/ARI investors are at the back of the queue, behind those already in PT and 220,000 CPLPs.
Do you put your faith in the new process? Or toss another lawsuit on the pile of 55k+ outstanding? Or just check back in 10 years and hope something has progressed?
3 Likes
If one knows the process is not working they should not follow it but find a way to bypass it.
Do you stay on the highway with the 20 mile long jam ahead of you? Or you find the nearest exit and re-enter 30 miles later?
I filed my lawsuit in July 2024, biometrics done January 20,2023. Still havenāt heard anything about my case. Anyone in a similar situation?