The social role of law requires improvements in access to justice

Despite the large number of cases in progress, the access of the poorest sections of the population to justice is still difficult, say experts.

The matter was discussed at the seminar The Future of Law and the Law of the Future, promoted by Folha last Monday (14). With live broadcast, the event, mediated by Flávio Ferreira, the newspaper’s Politics reporter, was sponsored by ESPM and supported by the Nelson Wilians group.

Access to jurisdiction is a guarantee, but it leaves something to be desired, since not everyone is able to access Brazilian judicial bodies on their own, says Carlos Ayres Britto, former minister of the STF (Supreme Federal Court).

Maria Tereza Sadek, a retired professor of social sciences at USP and a specialist in matters of the Judiciary, draws attention to the concentration of access to justice in the public sector and by state-owned companies.

In the TST (Superior Labor Court), the largest litigants in 2020 were Petrobras (11,500 open cases), Banco do Brasil (10,300), Caixa (8,537) and União (7,990). The figures were published in the ranking of the top 200 litigants on the court’s website.

Sadek also recalls the importance of free legal aid services. The Public Defender’s Office plays a very important role for the vulnerable population, which was the most affected by the pandemic.

For Leonardo Sica, vice president of the OAB (Brazilian Bar Association) in São Paulo, it is necessary to invite government officials to debate and create public policies to guarantee budgets for public defenders’ offices.

“Between opening a road and a new arm of the defense, he [governante] prefers to open a road. Investment is lacking,” she says.

According to the CNJ (National Council of Justice), in 2020 the country had 75.4 million cases without a decision and 27.9 million resolved, 20.8% less than in 2019 (35.3 million). There was also a reduction in the number of new cases, the percentage of cases per thousand inhabitants fell by 12% compared to the previous year.

The number of cases opened in free legal assistance fell by 30% compared to 2019. The pandemic is one of the factors for the drop, according to the survey.

For Marcel Daltro, communication director at Nelson Wilians Advogados, lawyers have an important role, that of playing a middle ground between society and the Judiciary. We have to have the skills to instrumentalize the client’s pains for the Judiciary and make this translation for the interested party.

According to him, alternatives such as arbitration agreements are interesting possibilities to reduce the burden on the legal system.

Seminar debates The future of Law. Watch:

Sica, from OAB-SP, follows the same line and says that it is important for the lawyer to be a bridge for access to justice. For this, it is necessary for the professional to communicate in a more accessible way, avoiding terms that are difficult to understand, the legalese. There are a thousand effective ways of communicating the right that can facilitate its access.

The credibility of the judiciary, especially in large trials, such as the one that took former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) to prison in 2018, was also debated.

Credibility is absolutely fundamental, and the Justice system communicated very poorly in this case, says Sadek, from USP. She emphasizes that the population needs to understand what happens in trials, especially those with great repercussions, otherwise the situation creates legal uncertainty.

Britto, former STF minister, agrees and says that, due to the greater exposure of the Judiciary Power operators, it is necessary to improve communication with the population, drawing up convincing, technically consistent decisions and avoiding contradictions.

But he points out that improving communication is not courting public opinion or practicing the so-called judicial activism, when judges exceed their duty to interpret the law and start editing it. It also indicates that the judiciary should use more palatable language.