Yes thatās what that means. Sorry about your lawyer
Agree with this. This reflects a general lack of openness and transparency by lawyers. Ideally there would be a database of lawyers who pledge to practice with transparency, namely sharing access to AIMA portal with clients, copy clients on all communication with AIMA, sharing passwords, discussing the lawsuit options with clients in advance, etc.
In the absence of this, someone mentioned in the past having lawyers sign contact before paying them that they will do these things and make it part of their contract of representation.
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That sounds great, but then how do you actually enforce it? Hire another PT lawyer? Its lawyers all the way down!
No. Not another PT lawyer 
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Just got word from our lawyer that the courts have ruled in our favor. They have now asked AIMA to make a final decision on the issue of cards within the next 30 working days.
Fingers crossed that we move to the ācard in handā status soon.
Summary
- Applied Nov 24, 2021
- Pre-approval in Jul 2022
- Invite to biometrics in Dec 2022
- Biometrics in lisbon on Feb 2, 2023
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Are you living in Portugal or anything? Did you ask for an urgent response? If so, under what basis?
I am not resident in Portugal. The filing seemed to be around the super long timelines and how my ability to move to Portugal or around EU were impacted by this delay. So, no special circumstances as far as I could see in the filing.
I filed end Nov and asked for an urgent response and its come through in 2 months.
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Great news. Mine is Dec 13 so hopefully Iām not too far behind. Fingers crossed!
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Maybe I should be telling the court we want to move immediately but cantā¦
And Iām right behind you, filed on 22nd Dec. Fingers crossed x 2
Another Successful Summons
We just received notification from our lawyers that our urgent summons, also submitted just before Christmas, has been successful and forces AIMA to decide on the residence permit (final approval) for the primary applicant within 30 days and the family reunification applicant within 40 days (as there is no case for family reunification until the primary applicant is decided).
The ruling comes in a long document from the court that has been translated into English. I would cut and paste the interesting parts but the document is password-locked so I cannot. However, itās interesting that the basis is that SEF had a duty to decide within 90 days from the āexpression of interestā on 16 November 2021 (the original application date) and the omission to do so represents a manifest violation of my right to obtain an administrative decision within a reasonable timeframe.
My lawyers have already scheduled an appointment with AIMA this week to follow up. I am happy with them, clearly.
We are also not resident in Portugal yet but we did use a relativeās Lisbon address on the summons. Our biometrics were on February 13 last year.
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Congratulations Rich!
Who are your excellent lawyers please?
Congrats! Also curious which location and judge ruled on this, as weāve seen different interpretations of the law in this very thread 
Yes indeed. I very much hope we get one of these lawyers this time around, since our suit was rejected before. (My timeline is almost identical to Karthikās.)
Finally got a response from my lawyer. We filed early December, I think. We do not receive a lot of details. The judge accepted our petition and gave AIMA 10 days to file a defense including a full copy of our GV process. We applied early November 2021 and biometrics January 5th 2023 in Portimao. Several people on this forum that had biometrics in Portimao after us received their approval right before AIMA took over. We live full time in Portugal and went the real estate route.
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Wow, lots of lawsuits clearing out right now, thatās great
Add another one to the list.
We spoke with our lawyer on Monday and she said that the court has sided with us and has given AIMA 30 days to decide on the main applicant and 40 days for family reunification members. This was filed around November 20, though it does not seem that it was filed as an āurgent caseā even though the lawyer said it would be as we already reside in Portugal. We are unsure of the reason as to why this is the situation but it is welcome news nonetheless.
Our GV journey is as follows:
Initial application - 24 Sep 2021
Pre approval - 18 January 2022
Invite for biometrics - 27 June 2022
Lisbon biometrics - 11 October 2022
Filing of court summons - 20 November 2023
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Just spoke with my lawyer - court gave AIMA X days to respond, they did not, now we are waiting for ???
Iām expecting more info from her in an email which I will of course post when I get it.
But overall, great news for everyone. Hopefully this gets AIMA in gear? Probably slows everything down to be honest but thatās not my problem. I hope they manage to streamline everything
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It doesnāt appear there is any way to get progress at all without a lawsuit so I donāt blame any of you. I have asked my lawyers to file an urgent one for myself as well next month (we are moving to PT on pre-approval, got tired of waiting).
Given some of you were rejected for ānot experiencing hardshipā as you donāt live in Portugal - seems like some BS to me! - figured safer to file it after I pull one of those Atesto de Residencia things from the municipality.
Its only the problem of those who the court rejectā¦