TJ-SP took four years to comment on Colégio Recursal – 03/10/2023 – Frederico Vasconcelos

Exactly four years ago, São Paulo judges await clarification from the São Paulo Court of Justice on the implementation of the unified Appeals College in the Capital.

President Ricardo Anafe gives signs of opening the dialogue and informs that in the coming months he will have to submit to the Special Body the proposal for the implementation of the new school model.

On March 8, 2019, under the administration of Judge Fernando Bartoletti, Apamagis (Associação Paulista de Magistrados) sent an official letter to the then president of TJ-SP, Manoel Pereira Calças, with suggestions to avoid structural or financial difficulties that would cause congestion in the system of Special Courts.

In June 2022, already under Anafe’s management, a group of judges sent new questions in a 389-page document. No answer.

The question is old. In 2013, when the proposed law was announced, the first instance judges already asked for greater debate on the structure to be created.

Apamagis had noted that the previous estimate was that each judge in the College of Appeals would receive about 3,000 cases per year. This prediction would surpass the distribution that judges receive, with a much larger structure. There would be a need for at least 14 appeal groups.

In the 2022 letter, the subscribers point out that the current system is productive and registers low congestion rates. There would be a need to install several other courts, which have a much higher distribution than necessary for installation, but this does not appear as a priority for the court.

merit and experience

Anafe says that “the aim is to fill vacancies in the unified Appeals College in a contest to be held in the coming months, based on merit, in order to allow more experienced magistrates, exclusively of final entrance, to occupy the vacancies”.

Subsequently, the vacant branches of such removed magistrates will be filled again, through internal career competitions, observing the same criteria already applied when judges remove themselves from the position of 2nd degree substitute.

Anafe says that the questions will be analyzed, together, in the proposal that will be made to the Special Body, “the only appropriate forum for discussing the matter”. This observation was well received. Some judges had the impression that everything was already defined and sanctioned.

In January 2013, the Special Body unanimously approved the bill to create the permanent structure for the Appellate Panels of the Special Courts, providing for 60 positions of judge.

In December 2018, a bill was approved, giving rise to the Complementary Law that created the unified Special Courts Appeals College, with 20 Appeals Panels, made up of three effective judges.

Implementation was suspended by the two previous administrations due to financial constraints. There are doubts about the beginning of works in the two buildings that will house the future appeal school.

Effective positions

“As soon as I took over the presidency, I determined that the studies were updated”, says Anafe. “The superiority of the Recursal College model composed of effective positions is, for me, clear”.

It aligns the following arguments:

– The current model is marked by the fragmentation of competence to judge appeals arising from the Special Courts system, allowing different decisions to be handed down in the 208 Appellate Panels existing throughout the State, which is a strong factor that generates legal uncertainty;

– The new model also brings, in addition to greater uniformity in the judgments, an increase in the quality of the provision of the judicial service, due to the exclusive dedication of the magistrates and the resulting specialization;

– The new model also avoids –which is common in the current system– that judges younger in their careers, of lower rank, reform decisions of older judges, of higher rank;

– The unified Appeals College will also facilitate the standardization of the flows and procedures of the notary unit itself, which will be born in a more modern format of UPJ (Digital Processing Unit).

joint presentation

The next step is the submission of the project to the Special Body. He says that the letter from Apamagis was added to the administrative file and his reasons will be accepted or rejected in the proposal that the presidency of the court presents to the superior body of the court.

Anafe observes that a considerable part of the arguments launched in 2019 are impaired, as it was intended to install the Colégio Recursal on completely different bases. The 2022 questions will be analyzed together in the proposal to be made to the Special Body, he says.

“Unfortunately, the concern of many who are against the project is far from any republican motivation”, says Anafe.

The motivation, it is alleged, would be based mainly on the failure of the previous attempt, which left a collection that took years to be assimilated by the first degree judges that are part of the system.

judges comment

The blog collected the following observations from judges on Anafe’s clarifications:

– The unification of jurisprudence seems to be the engine of the new model. But case law tends to be scattered and fragmented. It seems more like an ideological wish, devoid of examples that serve as a citation;

– Younger judges trying cases of older colleagues bother some more than others. There are judges from the constitutional fifth who are younger than many active judges in the courts;

– The issue of specialization also seems to have an ideological basis. It is not known how this college would be faster;

– There are already criticisms from judges favorable to the College, as they understand that the number of Treasury Panels would be insufficient. That is, they would start overwhelmed.