Source: Legal Consultant - São Paulo / SP - LAWS - 11/06/2010

With Constitutional Amendment 45/2004, item 5 of the Federal Constitution, which deals with individual and rights and guarantees, was inserted, item LVXXVIII, which ensures “for all, in the judicial and administrative spheres, the reasonable duration of the process and the means that guarantee the speed of your processing. ”

This is the biggest challenge for Justice in Brazil, in general.

There are several causes. Procedural legislation did not modernize at the same speed as the demand exploded, with greater access to justice, accompanied by a more incisive awareness of the most disadvantaged population, which, before, did not seek the Judiciary. On the other hand, national judicial services, in several cases, have not kept up with the growth of their own services as the demand has increased alarmingly, making many Judgments unfeasible in practice, due to the monthly movement of new actions being such , that the offices of the Varas and the Judges are not able to support the management of the thousands of ongoing cases.

There is a need for heavy investments in information technology, to reduce the amount of paper and bureaucracy. To bet on the best judicial management, where the Judge starts to assume an administrative and managerial role, more active in the conduct and monitoring of the registry office and its Judge in general, in addition to its ordinary Judge duties.

At the same time, the Special Courts System, created from Law 9.099 / 1995, with Special Civil Courts, Federal Special Courts from 2001, and now, with Law 12.153 / 2009, the creation of Special Courts of Finance Public, whose rule comes into force at the end of this month, are rules that demonstrate the possibility of a path in search of speed, simplicity, orality and procedural economy; it is enough to see that in 1997, in Rio de Janeiro, about 50 thousand lawsuits were filed in the Special Civil Courts and, in 2009, this number exceeded 750 thousand lawsuits, which required, it must be said, an enormous effort by the State Court of Justice Rio de Janeiro, be it in massive financial resources, or in a permanent management plan, to face such a challenge, in Free Justice, under the Law itself, which is basically sought by those who, really, can pay nothing.

The new Public Finance Courts Law encourages this sector of Justice; it will probably allow the current Public Finance Courts to become viable, with judgments in a reasonable time, as determined by the constitutional rule, enabling access to Justice, in the Courts of Finance, of impounded demands, today not proposed by the lengthy ordinary procedural rite to be followed and by the awareness of the situation of administrative exhaustion of the current Courts, the result of the great excess of existing processes.

In any case, the Project for the ongoing reform of the Civil Procedure Code, under the Presidency of the STJ Minister, Luiz Fux, is fundamental, which is already a guarantee of the quality of what will be presented, since Minister Fux is, without favor , proceduralist that prides Brazilian Law, and the Project will certainly incorporate changes, which will shorten the time of the process, reduce the number of existing resources, transform the process rite into something faster, in general, making life easier jurisdiction and legal operators, without trampling due process and the broad right of defense, but without forgetting, in the end, the first objective, which is to modernize and accelerate the progress of the processes as a whole, as this is the end to be sought.

Finally, giving effectiveness and instrumentality to the constitutional rule set out in article 5, LXXVIII, requires the real implementation of the Special Courts System, in Civil Courts, Federal Courts and, now, in the new Courts of Public Finance, which is the Justice of free mass that reaches, in the foreground, the most needy; investing in modern managerial models, anchored in information technology instruments, better training civil servants and the Judge, also, in a more active role of notary management and monitoring of their Judgment; and, in the end, constantly improve the legislation in force, aiming to modernize and simplify the rules, in order to guarantee the swift, real and true Justice.