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New Code of Civil Procedure: the judiciary as a pressure group on the legislative process.

Author:

Matheus Martins Lacerda

Abstract:

In 2015, a new Civil Procedure Code was approved by the National Congress. In the same year, projects aimed at modifying such code were presented, even before it began, in points highly criticized by the national magistracy. The subsequent approval of these changes was accompanied by news reports on the participation of associations of judges and official bodies, such as the Federal Supreme Court and the Superior Court of Justice. Since then, starting from the premise that these groups were acting in the attempt to put pressure on the legislative process, a research was conducted, in order to, besides confirming this hypothesis, to find out the means and the arguments pressure. Throughout the research, materials were found that confirmed the dispatch of letters, participation in public hearings, meetings and trips to the National Congress by representatives of associations and members of the Courts already mentioned. On the other hand, the survey pointed to indications that, even among magistrates ‘and courts’ associations, there were sometimes divergences of interests, and there was no unanimous positioning of the category, as initially suggested. In any case, the role of such groups on the legislative process remained clear, with technical information and data collection as their “main weapons”. Moreover, it was also evidenced that, due to a probable deficit in pressure, not all points criticized in general by the magistracy in the new codification ended up being the object of attempts at modifications, a situation that was, in practice, “mocked” by when judges apply the law.