STF hears parties involved in the judgment on guarantees judge

The Federal Supreme Court (STF) heard this Thursday (15) the arguments of the parties involved in the judgment on the constitutionality of the guarantees judge, a mechanism in which the magistrate responsible for the sentence is not the same one who analyzes precautionary measures during the criminal process. . During the session, representatives of entities linked to judges, the Public Ministry and the Brazilian Bar Association (OAB) spoke about the implementation of the measure. The ministers’ votes will be cast on Wednesday (21). The Court definitively judges four actions proposed by political parties and entities that are against the mechanism. The adoption of the guarantees judge was expected to come into force on January 23, 2020, according to the anti-crime package approved by the National Congress. However, it was suspended by an injunction from Minister Luiz Fux, the case’s rapporteur, in 2020. Sustainations During the session, lawyer Alberto Pavie spoke for the Association of Brazilian Magistrates (AMB) and the Association of Federal Judges (Ajufe). He said that the entities are not opposed to the guarantees judge, but to the model of immediate implementation of the measure. The defender argued that the law created a new instance and there is neither a budget nor a sufficient number of judges to comply with the measure. “The law went further to make a division of the first instance itself, as if it were creating a subdivision of that instance by establishing the impediment of the judge who acts in the investigation to act in the criminal action”, he said. Lawyer Caio Chaves Morau spoke for the Citizenship party. He also criticized the norm. For the defender, the law created a “new instance within the first instance” and did not foresee the financial impact of the measure. “This legislative proposal was not accompanied by financial impacts. There are studies that estimate something around R$ 2.5 billion”, he said. In favor Isadora Cartaxo, General Secretary of Litigation at the Advocacy General of the Union (AGU), defended the legality of the law and said that the norm sought to establish the division of functions between the judge who acts in the investigation and the magistrate who acts in the judgment . “It is an institutional guarantee in favor of greater exemption and impartiality of decisions, aiming at a higher level of neutrality of the judge”, she argued. Criminal lawyer Alberto Toron, representing the Federal Council of the Brazilian Bar Association (OAB), said that there is a lack of “political will” to modernize the Judiciary. “What the guarantees jury did is a specialization within the scope of the Judiciary of that judge who will take care of the inquiries, receiving the arrest records in flagrante delicto, granting habeas corpus when an illegality is identified, which are normal attributions”, he said. the various amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code (CPP), the anti-crime package established the guarantees judge, who is the magistrate who must act in the criminal investigation phase, deciding on all requests from the Public Ministry or the police authority that concern the investigation of a crime, such as, for example, breaches of secrecy or preventive arrests. He, however, cannot pass sentences. According to the new law, the performance of the guarantees judge ends after he decides whether to accept any complaint presented by the Public Prosecutor’s Office If the accusatory piece is accepted, a criminal action is opened, in which another judge will act, who will be in charge of hearing the parties, studying the final allegations and pronouncing a sentence.

Agência Brasil