Courts must allocate half of positions to women – 01/01/2024 – Power

Two resolutions approved by the CNJ (National Council of Justice) in December establish rules that seek to expand the presence of women in the Judiciary and guarantee the application of racial quotas.

The initiatives are in addition to other measures to encourage diversity approved by the body throughout 2023 and which also come into effect this year.

In September, still under the presidency of Minister Rosa Weber, the CNJ instituted gender alternation in merit-based promotions for career judges in state, federal and labor courts. Affirmative action should be adopted from this month onwards in courts where there are less than 40% of career judges in high school.

In the December 12th session, the council approved another change so that gender parity is also adopted in the administrative activities of the courts.

The new resolution changes the policy of encouraging the institutional participation of women in the Judiciary to determine that the courts have at least 50% women – which includes transgender and gender fluid women – in these roles.

The rule applies to appointments of judges as assistants, filling leadership, advisory and even management positions, when they are freely appointed. It must also be applied in the composition of committees, institutional event tables and in the hiring of interns and companies providing outsourced services.

In her vote, the action’s rapporteur, then councilor Salise Sanchonete, highlighted that female underrepresentation “demands the implementation of truly effective and transformative public policies, as the simple passage of time has proven insufficient to balance these inequalities”.

The assistant judge of the CNJ presidency Karen Luise de Souza states that the new rule is an advance in the policy of encouraging female participation in leadership and management positions.

“It is a significant step towards achieving gender equality and female representation in spaces traditionally occupied by men, promoting justice, equity and enriching the decision-making process”, he says.

Sanchonete claims that, unlike the gender rule for promotions, the change faced no resistance.

The president of the CNJ, minister Luís Roberto Barroso, spoke with the courts to reach a consensus to approve the rule, which will come into effect in March.

As a result, courts that change their presidency at the beginning of this year, such as the TJ-SP (Court of Justice of São Paulo) and the TJ-RS (Court of Justice of Rio Grande do Sul), for example, will not be affected immediately. .

The resolution also provides parameters for the CNJ database to select women with experience in the Judiciary and academia. Registration is voluntary and courts can also create their own systems.

Another resolution, approved in the last council session in 2023, establishes rules for the creation of hetero-identification commissions in public Judiciary competitions.

In November, the CNJ approved a new national exam for entry into the judiciary. Black and indigenous people will have a different cutoff score of 50%, while other competitors must get at least 70% of the test questions correct. Shareholders must go through a hetero-identification committee at the Court of Justice in the state of their domicile before taking the exam.

The approved regulations now come into effect in April and establish the parameters for the functioning of these commissions and other competitions.

The groups will be composed of five members with a black majority. Among the requirements is training in a course on race relations and confronting racism. The resolution also creates a database for registering professionals interested in joining the panels.

The hetero-identification procedure will take into account the candidates’ phenotype, observing hair, skin tone, nose and mouth.

In the first stage, this will be done through photos collected when registering for the competition.

Candidates whose self-declaration is not confirmed will be called to the second stage, with in-person or telepresence verification. Those who do not attend or fail will lose their right to quotas, but will be able to compete for widely competitive places.

“The resolution is an important step towards consolidating and improving the quota policy”, says the secretary general of the CNJ, Adriana Cruz, for whom the text is the result of dialogue with civil society.

Such as Sheet showed, only 2 in 5 vacancies for black people were filled in the state courts and none in the federal courts in competitions concluded since June 2015, when the CNJ approved the reservation of at least 20% of vacancies for self-declared black candidates.

For experts interviewed by the newspaper, the affirmative actions created in the new national exam are necessary, but the evaluation format will need to be revised so that the number of black and indigenous people approved increases.

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Understand the resolutions approved by the CNJ for diversity:

• Gender Switching: approved in September, the resolution establishes that courts with less than 40% of career judges in the second degree must adopt, alternately, exclusive lists of women for vacancies based on merit criteria until the percentage is reached. The rule will come into effect from January.

• National exam: in November, the creation of a national eliminatory test was approved as a prerequisite for candidates for the judicial examination. The exam will have 50 questions and will be administered annually. Black and indigenous candidates will be approved with 50% marks in the test. For the others, the cut-off mark will be 70%.

• Quota for administrative functions: In December, another CNJ resolution established that courts must allocate 50% of vacancies for administrative functions to women, which includes vacancies for assistant judges, leadership positions, internships and participation in event tables. The measure should be adopted from March.

• Heteroidentification panels: Also in December, the resolution was approved that establishes the parameters for the composition and functioning of hetero-identification panels in the courts for the application of racial quotas. The regulations come into effect in April.