[1] Born in Lourenço Marques in Mozambique in 1934, Garcês (also written as Garcez and Garcêz) graduated in Law from the University of Coimbra in 1956.
After the Independence of Mozambique in 1975 she settled permanently in Portugal and, in 1977, began to work as a magistrate after a competitive exam that, prior to the Carnation Revolution in 1974, had only been open to men.
[1][2][3][4] A Fado singer in her spare time, Garcês retired from the judiciary in 2005 after reaching the age limit of seventy.
She attributed her failure to gain a seat to the practice of giving preference to “judges who served political power”.
[5] In 2005 she was awarded the Order of Liberty (Portuguese: Ordem da Liberdade) by the President of the Republic, Jorge Sampaio.