Conference
Access to Justice and Vulnerable Populations

Miguel Reale Júnior

October 8th, 2008, 10:00, CES Seminar Room (2nd Floor)

Presentation

1. The Brazilian Constitution establishes in art 5th, referring to individual rights and guarantees, clause LXXIV: “the State shall render juridical and costless  assistance to those who prove insufficiency of resources”;
2. The Public Defender should be, according to art 134 of the constitution, the institution essential for the jurisdictional function of State in charge of juridical orientation and defence, at all levels, of the needed;
3. It occurs, however, that a great distance exists regarding law in books and reality. The Public Defender of the Union, responsible for Juridical and Judiciary Assistance as what matters to federal competence, is extremely deficient, merely counting on a scarce structure and a scarce number of defenders.
4. In the State of Sao Paulo, the Public Defender has just been created and counts upon merely 400 lawyers, which, however much dedicated, are insufficient to comply an immense deprived population. The nucleuses in which the Defender  divides itself in order to guarantee access to justice  from the more vulnerable: its difficulties;
5. In face of this deficit,a convention was established with OAB and 47.000 lawyers comply provide judicial assistance against payment;
6. However, the greatest concern is the distance between Justice and the people. Be it  in what refers to the mentality of the Justice, magistrate and Attorney General operators, be it in what refers to physical inaccessibility, being the courts distant from the more populous and poor neighbourhoods in large cities;
7. There are important experiences in  conflict resolutions: the Auditor Office  or the Mediation House in Fortaleza, Ceara, the CICs in Sao Paulo, Integrating Centres for Citizenship, Itinerant Justice, rendering of assistance to women victims of sexual violence;
8. Analysis of the Auditor Office in Ceara: not imposing a solution, whether facilitating the dialogue between the parts, by which both can win;
9. Analysis of the Cics in Sao Paulo, approximation of Justice: bringing institutions next to the population and adjusting them to the reality of conflicts;
10. Social Duties in police stations: solving conflicts instead of promoting them or solving legal proceedings;
11.  Assistance to sexual violence victims, as Pro Bono Lawyering. Positive yet incipient experience;
12. Pro Bono Lawyering for non-profitable assistance entities; by area of performance: citizenship promotion; people with special needs; children and adolescents; human rights; environmental;
13. Special Criminal Judgeships: simplification of the swift injustice generating process. The so called Maria da Penha Law, concerning violence against women, that forbids the application of Special Criminal Judgeship rules;
14. Consumer Defence, the Procons: effective activity. SINDEC – National Consumer Defence System – MINISTRY OF JUSTICE.

Biographic note

Miguel Reale Júnior obtained his doctorate degree in Law at the University of Sao Paulo in 1971; Associate in 1974 at the same School; Full Professor at the School of Law, University of Sao Paulo since 1987. Was Head of Department of Penal Law, USP from 2002 to 2006. Justice Minister of State and President of the Lawyers Association of Sao Paulo. Author of several books on doctrine, collected writings on juridical opinions and various articles in several Brazilian and foreign juridical journals. Is member of the Academia Paulista de Letras (chair nº 2). Was Member of the Elaborating Committee of the General Part of the Penal Code and of the Penal Execution Law, from 1980 to 1984; President of the Committee for Diagnose of the Brazilian Criminal System and the Elaborating Committee of Preliminary Law Projects modifiers of the General Part of the Penal Code, as well as Penal Execution Law of 2000; Was member of the Committee for Constitutional Studies, presided by Afonso Arinos, special Advisor for the Presidency of the National Constitutive Assembly; Presided the Committee in charge of the analysis of State responsibilities regarding the political murdered and missing during the military regime.