Fernando Vaz Ventura is a Justice of the Supreme Court of Justice of Portugal (2023–present), where he primarily hears criminal cases.
He previously served on the Constitutional Court of Portugal (2012–2021), having been elected by Parliament for the legally fixed, full nine-year term. He also played a leading role in judicial training as Director (2022–2025), Deputy Director (2010–2011), and earlier trainer (1990–1995; 2001–2004) at the Center for Judicial Studies (CEJ), the body responsible for the recruitment and initial and continuing training of all Portuguese judges and public prosecutors.
Before entering the judiciary, he worked in accounting. He earned his law degree from the University of Lisbon in 1984 and was appointed judge in 1987. He served in several first-instance courts (Setúbal, Graciosa, Fornos de Algodres, Elvas, and Lisbon), later becoming Presiding Judge of the Lisbon Criminal Court (1991–2007). He then sat in the criminal sections of the Courts of Appeal of Coimbra, Guimarães, and Lisbon (2007–2023). He was promoted to the Supreme Court of Justice after placing first in the competition organized for that purpose by the High Council for the Judiciary.
Internationally, he completed judicial training placements in the United Kingdom as a visiting judge nominated by the European Association of Judges, working with Sir Richard Aikens PC at the High Court of Justice and the Central Criminal Court in London (2005), and later at the High Court of Justiciary in Edinburgh with Lord Philip Brodie QC PC (2006).
He has worked with major multilateral institutions. Under a United Nations program, he trained the first cohort of judges and prosecutors in Timor-Leste (2002). He was Portugal’s national expert to the OECD Working Group on Bribery (2006–2007) and to the Council of Europe’s Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) (2010). For the European Commission, he coordinated missions in West Africa under the Expert Support Facility to combat drug trafficking (2008–2009), and he served as Portugal’s expert in drafting the EU Directive on the European Investigation Order (2010–2011).
He represented the Portuguese judges’ association in the International Association of Judges and the European Association of Judges (2000–2006) and, on behalf of CEJ, has sat on the Steering Committee of the European Judicial Training Network (EJTN) (2022–2025) and taken part in the activities of the International Organization for Judicial Training (IOJT), the Ibero-American Network of Judicial Schools, and the Euro-Arab Judicial Training Network.
He was a founding member of the editorial secretariat of the judicial journal Sub Judice, has contributed to several legal publications, and co-edited The Rule of Law and Good Administration of Justice in the Digital Era (2023). He currently represents the Supreme Court of Portugal at the European Law Institute.