ACESSO À JUSTIÇA, REDUÇÃO DAS DESIGUALDADES E INCREMENTO DA CIDADANIA

DESAFIOS PARA A IMPLEMENTAÇÃO DA POLÍTICA NACIONAL DE TRATAMENTO ADEQUADO E SOLUÇÕES CONSENSUAIS DE CONFLITOS DA DEFENSORIA PÚBLICA

Abstract

This article analyzes the role of the Brazilian Public Defender's Office (Defensoria Pública) in guaranteeing access to justice for vulnerabilized individuals and the potential of out-of-court conflict resolution through the recently approved National Policy for Adequate Treatment and Consensual Conflict Resolution. Drawing initially on contributions from the sociology of law to explore the theme of access to justice, it addresses different models of legal assistance and describes the main aspects of the aforementioned national policy. Based on the observation that judicial policies aimed at ensuring access to justice in Brazil have distanced themselves from a substantial conception of conflict resolution, focusing instead on formal-quantitative aspects such as costs and the reduction of case numbers in courts, and understanding the constitutional dimension of the Public Defender's Office as an expression and instrument of the democratic regime, the research problem is to ascertain the possible contributions of the Public Defender's National Policy to the reduction of inequalities and the enhancement of citizenship in Brazil. The object of investigation is the analysis of the Public Defender's Office's performance in guaranteeing access to justice for those in need in light of this new institutional development. In conclusion, it is argued that a sociological perspective on access to justice can contribute to the construction of a new institutional paradigm, embodied in the aforementioned national policy, which transcends the liberal-individualistic model of legal assistance, thereby enabling the induction of new social realities and the production of individually and socially just outcomes.