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PAPERS, MY FRIEND, ARE BLOWING IN THE WIND: TOWARDS A
PAPERLESS ADMINISTRATION
Assistant professor Fernanda Paula OLIVEIRA'
Invited assistant Carla MACHADO2
Abstract
We are witnessing in Portugal an intense movement of dematerialization offiles and administrative procedures.
Of files, because Public Administration has been moving towards the promotion and effective implementation of
documentary registers and their availability in electronic support to the detriment of the usual registration on physical
paper support. Of procedures, since the procedural electronic process has been privileged in relation to the face-to-face
contact during the office hours previously established by the services. We have thus passed from a model based on the
ancient bureaucratic requirements to a Public Administration able to adapt to the new technological realities and the
challenges of e-government. Today, the contact between the citizen and the Public Administration is, as often referred,
at the distance of a click, without any time constraints or imposition of unnecessary bureaucratic requirements.
Therefore, we have today a Public Administration that tends to be more effective and more efficient, that, as a tendency,
does not require more than it needs, being the tributary of a model of intermittent administration. With this article, we
intend to highlight some characteristics of 21st century public administration: a Public Administration that is intended
to be closer to the citizen.
Keywords: administrative procedures, public administration, dematerialization offiles, e-government.
JEL Classification: K23, H83
1. Inventory for computer-based administrative procedures
We are witnessing in Portugal an intense movement of dematerialization of files and
administrative procedures3. Of files, because Public Administration has been moving towards the
promotion and effective implementation of documentary registers and their availability in electronic
support to the detriment of the usual (and now in many areas practically outdated) registration on
physical paper support. Of procedures, since the procedural electronic process has been privileged in
relation to the face-to-face contact during the office hours previously established by the services.
We have thus passed from a model based on the ancient bureaucratic requirements of the
stamped paper4 and the official blue lined sheet of paper for submitting requirementss, to a Public
Administration able to adapt to the new technological realities and the challenges of e-government.
Today, the contact between the citizen and the Public Administration is, as often referred, at
the distance of a click, without any time constraints or imposition of unnecessary bureaucratic
requirements. Therefore, we have today a Public Administration that tends to be more effective and
more efficient, that, as a tendency, does not require more than it needs, being the tributary of a model
of intermittent administration6. In short, a Public Administration that is intended to be closer to the
citizen.
What we have just indicated is in line with the provisions of Decree-Law 74/2014 of 13 May,
under which the rule of the digital provision of public services has been established and the assisted
digital service as its indispensable complement was set out. In fact, pursuant to article 2 of referred
decree, it is stipulated that public services should, where their nature is not opposed to it, in addition
to face-to-face service, also be rendered digitally, through their progressive availability on the
' Fernanda Paula Oliveira - Faculty of Law of the University of Coimbra, Portugal, fpaula@fd.uc.pt.
2 Carla Machado - Faculty of Law of the University of Coimbra, Portugal, carlamachado@fd.uc.pt .
3 Dematerialise means to make immaterial (in the sense of non-physical) in Diciondrio Priberam da Lingua Portuguesa [online], 2008-
2013, http://www.priberam.pt/dlpo/desmaterializa%c3%a7%c3%a3o [accessed on 18-10-2017].
4 Definitively abolished only in 1986, by Decree-Law 435/86 of 31 December, on the grounds that (...) it only constitutes a symbol
of the bureaucratic burden, no longer justifying its use.
'For example, see article 5 (5) of Decree-Law 595/74 of 7 November.
6 Miguel Prata Roque, 0 nascimento da Administragdo Eletr6nica num espago transnacional (Breves notas a prop6sito do projeto de
revisdo do C6digo do Procedimento Administrativo), in Revista Eletr6nica de Direito Pfiblico, No. 1, 2014, p. 6.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/perbularna7&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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