Criminal Procedure and Democratic Rule of Law

   CONTENTS  

Toward the modernization of the Brazilian penal system

This group aims to study novel possibilities, suggest contemporary solutions, and exert an effect, by an applied scholarly production, on the reality of the Brazilian judicial system. These daring goals are a component of the everyday activities of the Research Group on Criminal Procedure and Democratic Rule of Law: Constitutional Instrumentality (protective of civil liberties) as Limitation to the Punitive Power.

In 2011, Brazil exhibited the third largest jail population worldwide with 500,000 inmates, of whom 190,000 were preventively arrested. This group is chaired by Professor Aury Lopes Jr., who contributed directly to the formulation of Law 12,403/11. This law proposes a new legal regimen for preventive arrests and thus assists in avoiding the collapse of the Brazilian prison system. The book Criminal Procedure Law and Its Constitutional Concordance, whose ninth edition was published in 2011, describes the results of that study, which suggests nine alternative possibilities to preventive arrest. Among the so-called control instruments are fines of up to 200,000 in minimum wages, electronic monitoring (e.g., the use of ankle monitors), and a ban from leaving the area.

Other focuses of incessant research and publication for the team of Lopes Jr. is the Penal Procedure Code Reform. With the publication of eight books on this subject in a single year, the group’s chair estimates that the approval of the recommended alterations by the National Congress will represent the largest legislative shift in Brazil since 1941, when the code was initially introduced. Consequently, the methods of investigation, evidence collection, and procedures will suffer direct effects.

The reinforcement of ongoing partnerships, such as the one established with USP through joint activities with Professor Gustavo Badaró and the search for new partnerships, seek to improve the study conducted on the subject of the Reasonable Length of the Penal Procedure, which focuses on gridlocks and delays and their possible solutions.