Source: Jornal do Commercio Brasil (RJ), 25/06/2009

The congestion rate in the Judiciary reaches 69%, that is, of every 100 cases that have reached the courts, only 31 have been resolved. The figures were presented by Minister Gilmar Mendes, president of the Supreme Federal Court (STF), during a lecture on Management in the Judiciary - Challenges and perspectives held at the Fundação Getúlio Vargas (FGV), in Botafogo. "Despite all the deficit in the Judiciary, its evolution is undeniable and, based on statistical figures, measures are being taken to improve the institution," he said.

The minister warned of the excessive number of actions brought. According to him, for every three Brazilians, one has a lawsuit. This proportion is based on data from 2008, in which it appears that 70 million cases have been processed throughout the Judiciary, one of the highest litigation rates in the world. Of this total, only 25 million were resolved in 2008, there are still 45 million cases to be judged.

Due to the permanent expenses and all the bureaucracy surrounding the creation of new courts and the difficulty of extinguishing them, the solution presented was that of Integrated Justice, which, in theory, will use the capillarity of the state courts and the Labor Court to collect the claims addressed to the Federal Justice. “This model, in addition to speeding up justice, obliges us to fulfill the leveling duty that will offer a quality judicial service.”

In the Supreme Court, in 2008, the number of cases fell by 41% in relation to the last few years. This reduction in actions occurred through the adoption of general repercussions and by the presidency of the Supreme Court, which prevents the distribution of processes already repeated.

The general repercussion was introduced in the Brazilian legal system by Constitutional Amendment nº 45/04. The institute allows only relevant issues to be assessed, removing the pure and simple nonconformity of the defeated party from the scope of the STF's scope, in order to improve the quality of the jurisdictional provision.