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About IRN

Mission, values and competences

Institute of Registries and Notary ⁄ About IRN ⁄ Mission, values and competences

Mission

Implement and monitor register service policies in order to provide services to citizens and companies in different business areas: civil identification, civil register, land register, commercial register, movable property register, nationality and register of legal persons, also ensuring regulation, control and oversight of activities of notaries.

 

Values

  • Trust: Ensure legal certainty in register and civil identification areas.
  • Accuracy: Adopt high professional standards to safeguard legality, so as to guarantee reliability in register acts.
  • Proximity: Ensure the existence of a local service network and promote the development of interpersonal technology applications enabling interaction with users, based on a ‘anytime’ and ‘anywhere’ system. 
  • Innovation: Promote public service modernisation by making greater use of new information technologies. Strive for continuous improvement through the implementation of methods and technologies maximising new services and products, which constitute original and groundbreaking solutions.
  • Development of human, financial and material resources: improving internal efficiency and reducing public expenditure by, inter alia, reorganising the register service network and optimising financial flow management. Human resource reclassification, through continuous training in order to ensure process continuous improvement aiming at the use of new information systems in register and financial areas. 
  • Cooperation and partnerships: Promote cooperation between Portuguese-speaking countries or national citizen communities, contributing to Portugal’s economic and cultural promotion, leveraging on synergies arising therefrom. Working in an integrated manner and fostering the involvement of national and international partners by establishing strategies and shared commitment in order to achieve targets and reinforce efficient and effective responses.

Powers

  • Support drafting and implementation of policies on nationality, civil identification and on civil, land and commercial register, on movable property and legal persons, in addition to implement and monitor measures laid down, and set up and implement modernisation projects in the register sector, in its various dimensions;
  • Direct, coordinate, support, assess and monitor register office activities and establish standards and techniques related to register activities and ensure its compliance;
  • Ensure the issue, renewal and cancellation of citizen cards, as well as the issue of certificates;
  • Ensure reception and confirmation of information required to grant and hand over ordinary passports;
  • To undertake studies in order to reorganise and modernise register services and work together with the Instituto de Gestão Financeira e Equipamentos da Justiça (IGFEJ), towards the development, operation and evolution of the respective information systems;
  • To programme, in cooperation with the Directorate-General for Justice Policies (DGPJ) and IGEFJ, as regards the need for premises of register services and assist in the planning and execution of construction, alteration or maintenance works;
  • Cooperate with DGPJ in collecting, processing and disclosing statistical data on registries and notary, providing information required to compile official statistics in the area of justice;
  • To process and disclose statistical and information data stored in their various databases;
  • To coordinate the preparation and implementation of, and assess, budgetary, financial and accounting management of register services and handle compensations and other allowances for register officers; 
  • To settle, charge and receive own revenue;
  • To provide services to judicial bodies, other public administration bodies, public companies or private entities on the basis of contractual arrangements which establish, inter alia, levels of service and corresponding compensation;
  • To cooperate with counterpart or other national or foreign entities, including the conclusion of protocols, agreements or other legal arrangements to cooperate in its area of activity, and ensure representation in international organisations working on matters falling within its mission; and
  • To regulate, monitor and oversee notarial activities and notarial acts and exercise disciplinary action over notaries, in accordance with the law.