TRT de Minas is subject to actions and procedures at the CNJ and CSJT – 05/10/2023 – Market

The TRT -3 (Regional Labor Court of the 3rd Region), in Minas Gerais, is the target of at least one class action and other administrative proceedings, three of which at the CNJ (National Council of Justice) and three at the CSJT (Superior Council of Labor Court) by appointing public servants to act as court officials.

The practice is provided for in the CLT (Consolidation of Labor Laws) and is regulated by the superior councils. It should have been reserved for exceptional situations and for short periods of time, but, according to Judiciary officials, it began to be used on a regular basis to make up for the lack of these professionals.

These are the so-called “ad hoc” appointments, which means “for such purpose”. In this case, a public official who is designated by the president of the court to act as a bailiff for a specific reason, such as an emergency or an unforeseen absence.

The TRT-3 is not the only one that uses the expedient. At the CNJ, there are currently four other processes dealing with the matter in the TJs (Courts of Justice) in Bahia, Pará, Rondônia and Amazonas. According to the board, since 2010 another 50 procedures have discussed these nominations.

The problem, says João Paulo Zambom, president of Fenassojaf (National Association of Officials of Federal Assessors), is that the courts have given the possibility of making ad hoc appointments a very elastic interpretation.

In the case of the TRT-3, he considers that the court made the rule what should be an exceptional measure and has been doing away with what the servers consider to be the specialty of the post. In March of this year, the agency eliminated 20 vacant positions in this function (the formal name is Federal Assessor Justice Officer) and transformed them into Judiciary Analyst, a more generic designation.

“It’s absurd and they, who should set an example in labor relations, take unacceptable administrative attitudes”, says Zambom. Fenassojaf is the author of one of the procedures that question the designations made by the TRT-3 to the CSJT.

The association of bailiffs defends that the courts replace vacancies for the function by calling those approved in a public tender.

The TRT-3 says that there is no circumvention of the competition or even prejudice to the approved candidates –the most recent competition was held last year–, as those appointed as bailiffs “only temporarily exercise the attributions” of the position.

In March of this year, 104 candidates were nominated for the position of judicial analyst. Only 1 was for a federal appraising bailiff. The distribution of appointments considered, according to the court, in a note, the need to fill vacant positions in “first and second degree judicial units, in particular for the position of assistant magistrate”.

The last major appointments of bailiffs on TRT-3 were in 2009, when 116 were called, and in 2015, with 45.

In addition to the procedure of the association of bailiffs, those approved in the most recent tender also called on the higher councils.

Erick Ferdinann Santos Gomes is one of them. He presented two procedures, one to the CSJT, another to the CNJ and also a popular action to the Federal Court of Minas Gerais.

In the court case, Gomes asks for the annulment of all appointments and for the court to stop making these ad hoc appointments.

This Tuesday (9), federal judge José Carlos Machado Júnior, of the 3rd Federal Civil Court, denied the request for urgent relief, through which the author of the action tried to suspend the designations of ad hoc bailiffs with more than ten years in office or ceded by city halls.

Gomes points to the duration of these appointments as evidence that there is a role deviation in these exceptional appointments. In the action he presented to the Federal Court, he included a list of public servants with practically uninterrupted designations and for years. In one of these cases, the first appointment of an ad hoc bailiff was made in 1993.

In a demonstration presented in the popular action, the TRT-3 claims to have, on April 17 of this year, 68 ad hoc bailiffs. The court informed, in a note, that today it has 19 vacant positions for the function, of the 249 existing ones.

The TST says that the ad hoc appointment of bailiffs is regulated by CSJT resolution which, although it does not establish a deadline for the duration of these appointments, determines that they are for a specific period.