STF resumes judgment on guarantees judge next week

The Federal Supreme Court (STF) heard this Thursday (15) the arguments of the parties involved in the judgment on the constitutionality of the guarantees judge. With this provision, the magistrate responsible for the sentence is not the same as the one who analyzes precautionary measures during the criminal process. The ministers’ votes will be pronounced next Wednesday (21).

The Court definitively judges four actions proposed by political parties and entities that are against the mechanism. Brazil Agency. However, it was suspended by an injunction from Minister Luiz Fux, the rapporteur of the process, in 2020.

In this Thursday’s session (15), the General Secretary of Litigation at the Attorney General’s Office (AGU), Isadora Cartaxo, defended the legality of the law and said that the norm sought to establish the division of functions between the judge who acts in the investigation and the magistrate acting at the trial. “It is an institutional guarantee in favor of greater exemption and impartiality of decisions, aiming at a higher level of neutrality of the judge”, she said.

Lawyer Alberto Pavie, who spoke for the Association of Brazilian Magistrates (AMB) and the Association of Federal Judges (Ajufe), said that the entities are not against the guarantees judge, but the model of immediate implementation of the measure. He argued that the law created a new instance and there is neither a budget nor a sufficient number of judges to comply with the measure.

“The law went further to make a division of the first instance itself, as if it were creating a subdivision of that instance by establishing the impediment of the judge who acts in the investigation to act in the criminal action”, said Pavie.