Julgamento no Tribunal da Boa-Hora, em 1909, dos acusados do incêndio da Rua da Madalena. Fotografia de Joshua Benoliel.Joshua Benoliel, Public domain
Santa Maria Maior
Boa-Hora Court
A convent turned into a court in 1843. The Plenary Court, which tried political prisoners, sat here — and it was here that Maria Alda Nogueira, Natália Correia and the “Three Marias” were tried; the Three Marias were acquitted after 25 April.
Today: Former court, closed since 2009There is a marker at the siteOn 2 walks
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 — according to Wikipedia, the heaviest sentence given to a woman for political reasons.34Isabel 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 da Poesia Portuguesa Erótica e Satírica (Anthology of Portuguese Erotic and Satirical Poetry), which she had edited. The trial began on 3 June 1969 and ended on 21 March 1970, with her and the publisher, Fernando Ribeiro de Melo, sentenced to ninety days in prison, commuted to a fine. 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 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 in 1918.13
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
Diana Andringa’s testimony, recorded by the Aljube Museum on 19 April 2017. According to the museum’s keywords, she talks about the student movement, support for political prisoners, her links to the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) and the liberation struggle, her imprisonment and interrogation in Caxias, and her trial in the Plenary Court.
Original page Licença padrão do YouTube — embed permitido pelo canal oficial do Museu do Aljube
Museu do Aljube Resistência e Liberdade, on YouTube. The player only connects to that site when you press “Watch”.
In other archives
These can only be viewed on each archive’s own website.
In the Rádio Renascença studios, on the second floor of no. 5 Rua Capelo, the first verse of “Grândola, Vila Morena”, by José Afonso, went on air at 00:20 on 25 April 1974, on the programme “Limite” — the signal that confirmed the advance of the MFA troops.
An advertisement from 1909 places the surgery of Carolina Beatriz Ângelo, a gynaecologist and the first Portuguese woman surgeon, here, at no. 84 Rua Nova do Almada — two years before she became the first woman to vote in Portugal.
Today: The building of the former Civil Government
Seat of the Lisbon Civil Government, in a former building of the Convent of São Francisco. The PSP’s 1st Station, housed there, had cells where the political police locked up many prisoners, especially before 1938, and where trials of the Special Military Court were held.
On the Ribeira das Naus and Rua do Arsenal, on the morning of 25 April 1974, the soldiers of the forces loyal to the regime refused Brigadier Junqueira dos Reis’s orders to fire on Salgueiro Maia. “That was where 25 April was won” (Foi ali que se ganhou o 25 de Abril), Maia would say.
Revolution
Notes on the sources8
That the Lisbon Plenary Court sat at the Boa-Hora comes from Mensagem de Lisboa (2022); an archival source is still needed to confirm it, say since when, and identify the courtroom.
The date of 22 October 1960 and the claim that Maria Alda Nogueira’s sentence was the heaviest given to a woman for political reasons have only been read in Wikipedia.
Date of the acquittal: 7 May 1974 (Aljube Museum; the verdict as transcribed on Malomil; Wikipedia). The Diário de Lisboa cutting in the Hemeroteca Digital has “04Mai1974” in its file name, but says the verdict was read “yesterday afternoon”.
The 10:00 start of the trial of the “Three Marias” comes from a note in the Diário de Lisboa (“began yesterday at 10 o’clock”).
Who questioned the authors of the “Novas Cartas Portuguesas”: an officer of the Judicial Police specialising in prostitution (Aljube Museum), the Judicial Police (Wikipedia) or the PIDE/DGS (Commemorative Commission).
Carolina Beatriz Ângelo’s appeal to be entered on the electoral roll (1911) was decided by the judge of the 1st Civil Court (Assembly of the Republic); only secondary sources place it at the Boa-Hora.
The 1918 decree that opened the legal profession to women (no. 4676, of 19 July, according to 24 Notícias) has not been checked in the Diário do Governo.
State of the Largo da Boa-Hora Memorial in 2026 and current use of the building; the coordinate is that of the square.
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