Ombudsperson’s Office suggests PSP improves planning of police operations

The Ombudsperson’s Office has suggested that the National Directorate of the Public Security Police (PSP) improve practices in the planning of police operations, in order to guarantee the predictability, rationality and proportionality of police action. The Ombudsman’s intervention followed the analysis of complaints about a police operation in December 2024.

The suggestions result from the attention given to the requirements arising from the Constitution and the law, as well as the PSP’s internal rules, applicable to the procedures to be adopted when carrying out personal searches and their justification in the context of special crime prevention operations.

As this is a matter concerning citizens’ rights, freedoms and guarantees, it was emphasised that it was important for the files relating to these operations to reflect the grounds for the need for the PSP to carry out personal searches, including a predefinition of their scope, manner and other technical aspects of their execution at the scene of the operation.

You can read the letter sent here [in Portuguese only].