Judges circumvent CNJ rules for face-to-face return – 02/16/2023 – Frederico Vasconcelos

The Regional Labor Court of the 15th Region, headquartered in Campinas (SP), decides this Thursday (16) an administrative matter that could set a precedent in the second largest labor court in the country.

A judge and a TRT-15 judge asked for paid leave for studies shortly after the National Council of Justice tightened the rules for returning to face-to-face work.

The CNJ determined that magistrates should be present at the workplace, since January, for three working days a week.

The judge requested leave from July, for about 11 months, to attend a master’s program in the United States. The judge lives abroad and is also interested in taking a master’s degree. She applied for paid leave, from April to December this year.

She would have traveled without court authorization and asked for vacation when the CNJ determined.

In January, TRT-15 published a provision determining the holding of face-to-face hearings in all 1st degree judicial units.

Exceptions are restricted to 100% digital court processes and when there is a request by the parties. In these cases, the magistrate conducting the process presides over the act in the jurisdictional unit in which he operates.

The judges will be able to designate telepresence hearings in cases of urgency and in situations of replacement or appointment of a magistrate to act outside the jurisdiction of origin.

deficit of judges

The study permit is guaranteed in the Organic Law of the Judiciary. It is provided for in the Campinas TRT standard.

What most worries some magistrates is the deficit of judges in the TRT-15 staff. There is a deficit of 42 first degree judges in the Campinas court, which represents 11.32% of the effective staff of magistrates.

CNJ Resolution 64/2008 provides that “the total number of removals for long-term events cannot exceed 5% of the number of judges working in the first and second instances, limited, however, to twenty simultaneous removals”.

Events that exceed 90 days are considered long-term, as is the case with the two license requests.

Internal analyzes show that the TRT-5 substitute judges’ staff is notoriously insufficient to meet the need for assistance and cover legal removals, given the demand concentrated in its territory.

Its jurisdiction covers 599 municipalities in São Paulo, comprising 95% of the state’s territory.

In the first half of 2020, TRT-15 occupied the top of the ranking of judged cases for the first time, surpassing the TRT of the 2nd region, based in the capital of São Paulo. This result was attributed to the rapid adaptation of Labor Justice systems to remote activity.

According to some magistrates, currently many hearings are no longer held due to the lack of judges.

It is anticipated that the requests will be granted. There are judges who are against the approval of the two license requests, but they are a minority in the court.

Resistance to CNJ

The issue is not restricted to the Labor Court. There would be a strong movement among judges to escape the control of the CNJ. They are those who are already used to not going to the workplace and do not want to submit to these norms.

This is the case, for example, of judge Ludmila Grilo, from Unaí (MG), who was cautiously removed from the court by the CNJ this Tuesday. According to the rapporteur, Minister Luis Felipe Salomão, Ludmila “does not fulfill her basic duties, failing to attend the forum, even without authorization to perform telework, neglecting the management of the notary and failing to supervise the acts of her subordinates”.

The national inspector stated that some sessions had to be held by other judges from Minas Gerais, via the TJ-MG cooperation system, due to the absence of the magistrate.

One of the expedients to avoid face-to-face work would be the presentation of medical certificates requesting authorization for teleworking. What is provided for in Resolution 343 of the CNJ.

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