Boa-Hora Court

The building began life as a convent in the 17th century, became a barracks and, from 1843, a court — for 166 years, until 2009, when the criminal courts moved to the Campus de Justiça, in Parque das Nações.¹

The dictatorship’s political crimes were tried first by the Special Military Courts, created in 1932, and from 1945 by the Plenary Criminal Courts of Lisbon and Porto, presided over by an appeal court judge appointed by the Minister of Justice — a “mere cosmetic manoeuvre”, in the words of the 50 Years Commemorative Commission, to change the regime’s façade after the Allied victory.² In Lisbon, the Plenary Court sat here; among many others, Álvaro Cunhal and Mário Soares were tried here.¹

The communist activist Maria Alda Nogueira was tried by the Plenary Court in October 1960 and sentenced to eight years of major imprisonment and to security measures — she was the first woman to be given such a sentence.³⁴ Isabel Aboim Inglez was arrested in the middle of the Plenary courtroom while giving evidence as a defence witness, and spent three days in the Mónicas Prison.⁵ The journalist Diana Andringa was tried here in 1971 and sentenced to twenty months in prison.⁶

Natália Correia sat in the dock of the Plenary Court for the Antologia de Poesia Portuguesa Erótica e Satírica (Anthology of Portuguese Erotic and Satirical Poetry), which she had edited. The trial was set for 3 June 1969, but, after one postponement after another, the first hearing was only held on 17 March 1970; the verdict, on the 21st, sentenced her, and the publisher, Fernando Ribeiro de Mello, to ninety days in prison, commuted to a fine.²⁶ Natália wanted to read her poem “A Defesa do Poeta” (The Poet’s Defence) in court; her lawyer, Palma Carlos, persuaded her not to.⁷

The Novas Cartas Portuguesas (New Portuguese Letters), written jointly by Maria Isabel Barreno, Maria Teresa Horta and Maria Velho da Costa, came out in April 1972 and were seized by the censors a few days later; the authors and the publisher were charged with offending public morals.⁸ Questioned by the Judicial Police, as was the publisher, the authors awaited trial at liberty, on bail.¹¹ The trial began here on 25 October 1973 — in the 6th Correctional Court, an ordinary court, and not the Plenary Court — and the judge at once declared the hearing secret, ordering journalists and women observers from the feminist movement to leave.⁹ Outside, the case had become the first international feminist cause. On 1 March 1974, Maria Lamas gave evidence as a defence witness.¹⁰

The verdict, scheduled for 18 April, was only read after 25 April. On 7 May 1974, in the small courtroom of the 6th Court, Judge Acácio Lopes Cardoso declared that the book was neither pornographic nor immoral, and acquitted the authors. They wore red carnations on their chests; in the courtroom people shouted “Women united will never be defeated” (Mulheres unidas jamais serão vencidas), and the authors announced a women’s liberation movement.¹¹ The birth of the Women’s Liberation Movement is dated from that day.¹²

It was also here that, on 14 November 1913, Regina Quintanilha first appeared in a lawyer’s gown — the first woman to practise law in Portugal, with special permission from the president of the Supreme Court of Justice. The profession was only opened to women by law with Decree No. 4676 of 19 July 1918.¹³²⁵

Once the court had closed, the building was divided between the Ministry of Justice and Lisbon City Council. In May 2021, the City Council unanimously approved a Memorial to Political Prisoners and the Politically Persecuted (1926–1974) for Largo da Boa-Hora, designed by Álvaro Siza Vieira; in August 2025 it had still not been built.¹⁵¹⁶