Justice is a central theme in the campaign of the five leading presidential candidates ahead of the 18 January election. Proposals range from Luís Marques Mendes’s call for structural reform, faster proceedings and cross‑institutional pacts to modernise courts, to competing ideas on statutes of limitations and the scope of presidential intervention in judicial matters. The debate frames trade‑offs between efficiency and safeguards, and highlights the need for parliamentary and judicial buy‑in to implement meaningful legal and procedural change.