Women command only 4 of 27 TREs and expose barriers – 03/07/2024 – Power

The same Electoral Court responsible for judging actions to ensure greater participation of women in elections also exposes gender disparity in its own bodies.

The current composition of the TREs (Regional Electoral Courts) in Brazil is 319 men and 86 women among the full and substitute members — that is, 1 woman for almost 4 men.

Female representation is even more timid in command positions: the electoral courts distributed across the capitals of each of the 26 states and the Federal District they only have 4 women as president (none of them black). They command the courts of Paraíba, Mato Grosso, Rio Grande do Sul and Roraima — the remaining 23 are presided over by men.

In this year of municipal elections, these judges and judges can intervene when called upon, for example, in possible cases against fraud in the rules to guarantee female participation — they must be filed and judged, firstly, by the electoral judge.

In addition to the candidacy of at least 30% and a maximum of 70% for each gender, the legislation provides this same quota for women for electoral fund funds and time on radio and TV advertising.

Despite the male predominance at the top of the TREs, a woman will assume the presidency of the TSE (Superior Electoral Court) in 2024, replacing Alexandre de Moraes. It will be the minister of the STF (Supreme Federal Court) Cármen Lúcia, who in 2012 was the first judge to preside over the electoral court.

Each TRE is made up of seven members, plus their substitutes, in addition to the regional electoral attorney. These positions are occupied upon election, selection of the State Court of Justice, the Federal Regional Court and appointment of the President of the Republic.

This is one of the challenges for women to occupy more of these positions, according to Fabiana Severi, professor at the Department of Public Law at the Faculty of Law of Ribeirão Preto at USP (University of São Paulo). “The election, in the end, is made by members of the career who are already mostly men”, she states.

Women encounter barriers when entering the judiciary — according to a report by the CNJ (National Council of Justice), female judges entering the Judiciary reached 40% in 2022.

But the barriers increase when it comes to career progression until reaching positions as ministers and judges. According to the report on the TREs’ websites, they occupy more substitute positions.

Going against the grain, in TRE-PB women play prominent roles: judge Maria de Fátima Moraes Bezerra Cavalcanti Maranhão is president of the court and judge Agamenilde Dias Arruda Vieira Dantas is vice-president and magistrate.

For Maranhão, female representation is very little among the state’s electoral judges. “Today we already have many female judges, both in the common courts and in the Electoral Courts. However, our representation in the courts is very small”, she says.

In the Paraíba court, of the 7 full members, 3 are women. “It’s not enough to be a woman, you need to be competent and it’s not enough to have competence, you also need to have spaces of power. So our state has taken a very fair and touching look at female justice”, says the presiding judge.

Meanwhile, Piauí has ​​only one woman in the court, in the position of substitute regional electoral prosecutor (when contacted by the report, the court did not respond).

The Northeast is the region with the most women in the composition of TREs, with 25 in total. In the North there are 24 women; in the Central-West and South, 11 female judges.

All of these regions have at least one state with a woman as president of the TRE, except the Southeast, where female representation is boosted by the TRE-RJ, which has six women on the court (three incumbents and three substitutes).

The TRE of SP, the state that has the largest electoral college in the country, has only three women, only one of whom is a member. “The still low number of female judges at TRE-SP is a reflection of what is happening at the São Paulo Court of Justice,” said the court in a statement.

“In that court, the first competition in which women entered was the 146th (in 1981). In the Court of Justice, despite there being two promotion criteria — merit and seniority —, both are subject to seniority in the career.”

Furthermore, TRE-SP states that the approval of a change in a CNJ resolution in September last year, including a rule that aims to promote gender parity in the positions of judges filled in the second instance in federal and state courts, may increase the number of women in the positions of judges.

Internally, the court says it established the Women’s Participation Committee of the Regional Electoral Court of São Paulo in 2019, which aims to “foster the carrying out of actions that promote the creation and maintenance of democratic spaces and equality between men and women”.

In December, the CNJ approved a resolution that determines that the courts must have at least 50% of women in administrative roles — including, for example, judges as assistants, filling leadership, advisory and management positions.

The decision gives more visibility to the CNJ database, the Registry of Women Jurists, made up of women with experience in academia or the Judiciary.

Professor Fabiana Severi considers that the defense of gender parity does not fall into an essentialist discussion, about men deciding one way and women another.

“The main argument involves the image that we, socially and institutionally, construct of Brazilian Justice”, he states. “Today it is even difficult, when we talk about the judiciary, to think of women as judges, because our imagination is already marked by a profession that is mostly made up of men.”

For her, the new CNJ rule may have little impact on women occupying positions as ministers and judges in courts, but it is still important.

“This debate promoted by the CNJ, which resulted in this resolution, ended up putting on the table the need for us to have formal institutional measures, like this, a strong measure, if we really want to accelerate this process of guaranteeing gender parity in public careers.”