DECENTRALIZING ACCESS TO JUSTICE: In search of rights recognition

DECENTRALIZING ACCESS TO JUSTICE: In search of recognition of rights143

 Ariane Gontijo Lopes Leandro¹⁴⁴

 Summary

 The literature notes an ascending vocation of the democratic principle that expands the institutionalization of law in social life, incorporating spaces that were not yet so regulated by it, jurisdiction, especially, the sphere of private life. There are many historical characteristics that have marked the culture and its influence on the development of citizenship in the Brazilian reality, for example, it is possible to show that from the political culture - colonialist, patrimonial, clientelistic, corporatist, statist, hierarchical, excluding and centralist – is that citizenship was projected and developed in the country, with its conquests and limitations, and the ways of conceiving the law. Even if it is not exclusive to the Brazilian case, these factors influence the country's culture to this day, directly affecting the ways of conceiving the law and its conflict resolution mechanisms. It is from these perspectives, which choose the theme of law and access to justice as a research problem, that we present this work. We will discuss the limits and challenges in the decentralization of justice processes, especially for low-income segments, some of the results found in the execution of an experience considered as access to justice, allowing, above all, to realize that, more than access the population seeks recognition of rights.

Keywords: conflicts; Mediation; Justice; Legal Culture; rights.

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Studies on the justice system in Brazil, especially studies by Junqueira (1996), Vianna et al. (1999), Sinhoretto (2006), among others, point out that during the 80s, but especially in the early 90s, the field of social and human sciences in general began to deepen their analyses, choosing as research object the processes of rupture and continuity of the democratization of the State and society, with a focus on judicial institutions, legal attributions and conflict management practices. All these studies aimed to follow the process of democratization in the country, precisely because political democracy was not, by itself, sufficient to guarantee an effectively democratic society, that is, one with broad exercise and access to citizenship. Fully democratizing the country also meant democratizing justice and, with it, access to it ¹⁴⁵.

Junqueira (1996), for example, expanded the discussions around access to justice by revisiting studies on the subject of the Judiciary and conflict resolution methods, the author highlights that even during the 70s and also in the 80s , the main scholars on the issue of access to justice were sociologically oriented jurists. These studies, according to Junqueira (1996), unlike what was imagined at the time about the Brazilian case, proved to be little influenced by the access-to-justice movement led by Mauro Cappelletti and Bryant Garth who coordinated the Florence Project ¹⁴⁶. The productions of Junqueira (1996) also revealed that the main question posed in relation to the Brazilian population was not, directly, the expansion of the welfare state or even the need to make effective the new rights “conquered” from the 60s onwards by ethnic and sexual minorities, but rather a broad demand for the expansion of basic (social) rights to which the majority of the population did not have access. There were several processes, related to political and legal exclusion, responsible for not guaranteeing access to rights for the Brazilian population (Junqueira, 1996; Carvalho, 2004) ¹⁴⁷.

Another study that is central to the understanding of issues related to access to justice in Brazil, especially the analysis of the Judiciary and its relations with politics and sociability in the country, is the work developed by Vianna et al. (1999). They provide a broad diagnosis of the institutions of the justice system, highlighting, above all, the politicization of judicial activity, a process that has been called the judicialization of politics; which means giving the Judiciary the ability to guide policy based on the interpretation/evaluation of existing laws. In addition to the judicialization of politics, the authors highlight the judicialization of social relations, which became a reality after redemocratization.

Sinhoretto (2006), in turn, presents two important analytical trends for the understanding of the justice system: a view referenced by macro-sociology and another by micro-sociology. The first trend presents a debate about (a) ruptures and changes in judicial organizations in the face of new legal attributions; (b) the highlights of the politicization of judicial action; (c) the new models that organize corporate identities; (d) the constants changes in the country's legal culture; and (e) the emergence of practices understood as conflict resolution innovations. The second emphasizes the obstacles in the democratization processes, such as challenges to the incorporation of democratizing demands and values ​​into the legal culture in the country, observing a persistence of hierarchical and excluding values ​​and practices, which imprison innovations and maintain traditional mental patterns.

However, these analyzes (Junqueira, 1996; Vianna et al., 1999; Sinhoretto, 2006), were influenced by the formulation of several initiatives to expand access to justice and the informalization of conflict resolution agencies, such as, for example, the Special Small Claims Courts. ¹⁴⁸; later, the Special Criminal Court ¹⁴⁹; and also practices stimulated by civil society organizations such as the Balcão de Direitos ¹⁵⁰. Another initiative, which emerged from an extension practice of the Faculty of Law of the Federal University of Minas Gerais, was the Conflict Mediation Program, which will be presented in this work.

The construction of a pluralism action research project legal

The implementation paths of a government program are complex and, at times, contradictory, marked by historical inheritances permeated by “personalistic relationships”, among other cultural, political and historical phenomena that we can find as characteristic elements of Brazilian culture (Carvalho, 1997). ). Currently, the Conflict Mediation Program is developed by the Directorate of the Nucleus for Peaceful Resolution of Conflicts of the Special Coordination for Crime Prevention, an organ of the State Secretariat for Social Defense of the Government of the State of Minas Gerais. ¹⁵¹. However, the program emerged from a university extension action of the Faculty of Law of the Federal University of Minas Gerais, called "Program Poles of Citizenship".

 

The Pólos de Cidadania Program, whose creation dates from mid-1995, is today an inter-institutional action based at the Faculty of Law of the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), which currently has the following objective: to articulate teaching, research and and extension with a view to the promotion, inclusion and emancipation of groups with a history of exclusion and a trajectory of social risks. Its practice/execution is largely carried out in partnership with other UFMG units, other public and private institutions of higher education and with os public administration bodies – municipal, state and federal executive power. However, the methodological development process of this extension action took place from influences arising from the reflections of a group of professors, legal practitioners, who taught at the UFMG Law School (Melo and Viana et. al., 2003)

This ideological aspect presented is based on the numerous approaches and initiatives arising from studies and practices influenced by jurists and legal practitioners, who during the 80's and 90's, turned to the issue of access to justice in the country. They began to perceive Justice not exclusively as the population's access to the Judiciary, that is, even if access to Justice could promote the approximation of the poorest social segments to the formal justice system, it seemed necessary to expand the forms of participation. of the individual in the construction of citizenship, generating “at least” a coexistence between “legal dogmatics” and “practices known as innovative in the access to justice” (Amorim; Burgos; Kant de Lima, 2002). Perhaps the reformulation of citizenship suggested by Miracy Gustin is more in line with the coexistence between these dimensions, rather than the replacement of the traditional model of Justice by the models de

¹⁵² For a better understanding of the teaching, research and extension activities of the Pólos de Cidadania Program, access: http://www.polos.ufmg.org.br. Last accessed on 10/01/2012.

¹⁵³ Graduated in Law from the State University of Rio de Janeiro (1962). Graduated in Full Licentiate in Usual Law and Legislation from Fundação Educação para o Trabalho de Minas Gerais (1975). Master in Political Science from the Federal University of Minas Gerais (1989) and PhD in Philosophy of Law from the Federal University of Minas Gerais (1997). Post-Doctorate in Teaching and Research Methodology from the University of Barcelona / CAPES, in 2002. She is currently a retired associate professor at the Federal University of Minas Gerais. She was one of the founders of the Pólos de Cidadania Program at the Faculty of Law of UFMG.

¹⁵⁴ There are many conceptions about the notion of ideology, with classical and expanded origins in the field of social and human sciences, but an interesting analysis of its characteristics can be seen in Motta (2009), when delving into studies related to the challenges and possibilities in appropriation of political culture by historiography.

informalization of dispute resolution. It is possible to perceive, from her speech, that the Pólos de Cidadania Program arises, in fact, from a process/movement started before 1995. The aspect that she calls “ideological group” is related to the existing reflection on the traditionalism of law taught by that university; based on the identity aspects of this group of law professors rather than ideological ones, although it is possible to perceive the relationship between these two dimensions. There were, in that context, similar notions/conceptions of citizenship and rights.

In addition, in other states of the federation, discussions were also held on the role of law and the Judiciary, themes that entered the agenda of the field of social sciences in the same period. Junqueira (1996) considered the mapping of research on access to justice in Brazil to be extremely important as a way of retelling the history of the sociology of law in the country; highlighting, above all, the first research in this field by jurists-sociologists - as was the case of Joaquim Falcão ¹⁵⁵, which had expanded reflections on collective social rights – and also on state and non-state ways of resolving individual conflicts, in which new informal mechanisms gained space. All that said, especially the unofficial practices of conflict resolution, to a large extent, were influenced by Boaventura de Souza Santos, who became known to the academic community from a research carried out in the 70s in the Jacarezinho favela in the city of Rio de Janeiro. of January. There were also initiatives similar to the Pólos de Cidadania Program and debates on the reform of the judiciary; issue that became subject to reflection with the enactment of the 1988 Constitution and with the influence of guarantor jurists, especially from the southern region of the country and the state of São Paulo ¹⁵⁶.

The creation of the Pólos de Cidadania Program, as well as these initiatives, become, at that moment, an object of reflection and, at the same time, of intervention. It is not just about the analysis of how the law operates, how the structures/institutions of the justice system work and how the population has access to Justice – as studies on the subject demonstrate (Vianna et. al., 1999; Junqueira, 1996) – but when it comes to the creation of mechanisms to expand access to rights and justice, both within the Judiciary itself and in extra-legal practices. We emphasize that in this period the influences arising from studies related to legal pluralism were central, becoming a research agenda in the context of the UFMG Law School. ¹⁵⁷.

Some of the works that had great influence on the methodology of the Pólos de Cidadania Program were the studies carried out by Boaventura de Souza Santos (1977; 1988; 2005), especially because of the author's influence with research on legal pluralism. According to Melo and Viana et al. (2003), one of the main studies by Boaventura de Souza Santos that influenced the legal professionals of the Pólos de Cidadania Program was the research carried out in the aforementioned favela of Jacarezinho, called “Pasárgada” and the contributions of the book “Pela Mão de Alice : the social and the political in postmodernity”. In “Pasárgada”, the author sought to verify the validity of an informal right organized around a community association of residents, understanding the relationship between official law and what the author called “Pasárgada's right”. Even if the author's research, in the Jacarezinho favela, did not aim to understand the channels of access to state justice, for Junqueira (1996) his findings attest not only to the production of a legal order parallel to that of asphalt, but also to the impossibility of of the residents of that region, perceived as illegal by official law, to seek solutions to their conflicts in the legal system and in the judicial bodies ¹⁵⁸.

The studies by Boaventura de Souza Santos (1977; 1988), especially the one carried out in the Jacarezinho favela, identified some aspects of tension between the dimensions of rights. The main one was the inaccessibility of the justice system to the most popular groups, leading many Brazilian researchers, such as Joaquim Falcão (1981), for example, mentioned above, to focus on the theme of the sociology of law; in particular to studies that analyze the mechanisms of Brazilian legal culture that enable (or not) the access of different social classes to Justice. Another aspect identified and that drew great attention from the academic community at the time, corresponded to the residents' own and daily ways/experiences of resolving their conflicts without state mediation.

The proposal formulated on the basis of action research influenced by legal pluralism was, throughout the consolidation of the Pólos de Cidadania Program, enabling a new arrangement of teaching and research for undergraduates in Law at UFMG. It was a stimulus to the production of knowledge about the legal and social practices necessary for the exercise of citizenship, an expensive issue that is always present in the reflections of the program's creators and identified as a central element in this analysis.

The first contact of the Pólos de Cidadania Program, as a research-action project of legal pluralism, with other public institutions besides the CNPQ and already working with social groups and movements, was with the Municipality of Belo Horizonte, in the period when Helena Grego was the Municipal Coordinator of Human Rights and Citizenship ¹⁵⁹; fact that marked the beginning of the relationship between the program and the Executive Power in the late 90s and early 2000s, bringing new fields of reflection, one of them was the notion of law found in the Street.

This concept and, consequently, this work proposal, emerged based on the influence of projects coming from the southern region of the country, which pointed to a new field of intervention of the so-called "alternative" law, which gained expression in academic debates on official-law law. state and informal law. This expression, “law found on the street”, denotes possibilities of incursion of law from the rules of sociability until then little or almost nothing absorbed by official-state law.

 

It is possible to find many projects that, during the 90s and early 2000s, were called “right found on the street” because of this situation. The first subproject of the Pólos de Cidadania program was named Núcleo de Mediação e Cidadania¹⁶⁰. The Nucleus' first location was the northeast region of Belo Horizonte. This and, later, its other areas of activity are characterized by the inaccessibility to formal rights, a factor that contributed to the disbelief of the population with regard to the notion of state law. Since it was necessary to build a work that aimed to resolve such aspects (Gustin, 2005).

In the late 90s and early 2000s, the Pólos de Cidadania Program and other projects and research that emerged in Brazil worked with the same perspective of reflecting on the Law and the popular classes - including the favelas, since these practices of access to justice aimed at serving its residents – based on two main orientations/areas: (i) the right found on the street, and (ii) legal pluralism. The Citizenship Integration Centers (CIC) Project in São Paulo, for example, was a joint initiative between the Executive Branch, the Judiciary Branch, the Public Ministry, police institutions and some jurists (Sinhoretto, 2006); the Balcão de Direitos project by the NGO Viva Rio (Souza Neto, 2001) was an initiative of a non-governmental organization; and the creation of the Special Small Claims Court was an initiative of the Judiciary (D'Aráujo, 1996). All these practices were focused on expanding access to the population in general – in particular the guarantee of the popular classes – to Justice.

During the years 2001, 2002 and 2003, the Center for Mediation and Citizenship started to be financed by the Ministry of Justice of the Federal Government and by the former Deputy Secretary of Justice and Human Rights of the Government of the State of Minas Gerais. In addition to these executive power partners, other relationships were maintained with state and national research institutes. Two other autarchies, the Basic Sanitation Company (COPASA) and the Minas Gerais Electricity Company (CEMIG), also financed the operation of the Core.

The institutionalization of the Center for Mediation and Citizenship subproject in governmental action took place in 2002 through State Decree nº42.715 and Resolutions 727 and 728 of the same year. Institutionalization occurred due to the formulation of a broad proposal for access to justice for the population living in the favelas of Belo Horizonte. Proposal called: Citizen Reference Center (CRC). In that same period, the Integrated Citizenship Center already existed

(CIC) in São Paulo, as mentioned, a public facility created during the period from 1996 to 2000, whose objectives according to Sinhoretto (2006) were to guarantee access to justice for populations residing in peripheral areas of the city and to bring the judiciary closer to these locations. The objective of the CRC in Minas Gerais, in articulation with the Centers for Mediation and Citizenship of the Pólos de Cidadania Program, was to become part of this paradigm of access to justice that was expanding in other states of Brazil. ¹⁶¹. However, the proposal in Minas was not successful, since the promises to build public facilities that would be the CRCs did not get off the ground, becoming a service below its original proposal. With the failure of the CRC, however, it was only in 2005 that negotiations between the Citizenship Poles Program and the State Executive Branch resumed, with the expansion and reformulation of the Mediation and Citizenship Centers. These Nuclei started to be incorporated by another organic structure of the Government of the State of Minas Gerais, the current Secretary of State for Social Defense, receiving the name of Program Mediation of Conflicts.

2. The Conflict Mediation Program: Justice decentralized

The Conflict Mediation Program begins to be implemented by the State Department of Social Defense/MG in 2005, still in the molds of the Centers for Mediation and Citizenship of the Pólos Program ¹⁶². However, this experience underwent reformulations according to the guidelines of the crime prevention policy of the Government of the State of Minas Gerais. ¹⁶³. Such a policy, in that context, was being thought as one of the main lines of intervention of the Aécio Neves government ¹⁶⁴ due to the high homicide rate in the State of Minas Gerais. The government understood that homicides could not be dealt with only by the apparatus of police institutions and the traditional justice system. The strategy was to ensure that such measures prevent the phenomenon of violence, based on prioritizing citizenship and the participation of the population in solving their problems (State Plan for Public Security, 2003).

According to Santos (2007), in the first year of management of the Conflict Mediation Program, from 2005 to 2006, its execution was carried out in a shared way between the Pólos de Cidadania Program and the Secretary of State for Social Defense; the managerial-technical-administrative coordination was the responsibility of the State, and the methodological-formative coordination of the University. As of 2006, according to Leandro and Cruz (2007), the program started to be fully coordinated by the State – administrative, technical, theoretical, methodological management, goals, results, among others. For the authors, when managed by the State Department of Social Defense, the program ceased to have methodological-formative links and coordination with the Pólos de Cidadania Program. There was, then, a “separation” of the state program with the Mediation Centers of the Pólos de Cidadania Program. The latter started to manage only two Nuclei, the others being called the Conflict Mediation Program. As of 2007, the Conflict Mediation Program has progressively expanded within the State of Minas Gerais, maintaining its coordination by the State Secretariat for Social Defense. Between 2007 and 2011, the program began to operate in 24 (twenty-four) locations.

According to Leandro and Cruz (2007), the program aims to undertake conflict mediation actions, socio-legal guidelines, articulation and promotion of community organization, valuing social capital. Constituting itself as a public equipment for the construction of citizenship, considered a form of access to justice and peaceful resolution of conflicts. What is confused, to a certain extent, with the perspectives of the creators of the original proposal. Analyzing the documents referring to the methodology of the Conflict Mediation Program, we verified, however,

 

some changes in concepts and forms of intervention in its structure ¹⁶⁵. For example, there has been an increase in concepts derived from studies of public policies, especially on public security with citizenship, conflict mediation, violence prevention, among others. The concepts of the Pólos Program, however, remain within the theoretical scope of the State Program.

3. Looking for recognition of rights

We perceive some challenges to the implementation of these practices, especially when analyzing the elements that influence culture in the Brazilian case and the different forms of construction of citizenship that characterize the country (Carvalho, 1996; 2004). Cardoso de Oliveira (2010), for example, expresses the dilemmas of citizenship in the

Brazil, by treating the idea of ​​legal isonomy and inequality of treatment as paradoxical, which, in a special way, expresses the counterpoints found in the patterns of inequality experienced by the population when accessing justice institutions. For the author, in his studies on France (Cardoso de Oliveira, 2006), the USA and Canada/Quebec (Cardoso de Oliveira, 1996a; 2002), the notion of citizenship as a reference for understanding Western democracies is directly linked to the idea of ​​equality, the latter being, therefore, loaded with multiple meanings, given the socio-historical and cultural influence of each context. However, the idea of ​​uniform treatment prevailing in Anglo-Saxon liberalism – even if questioned by North American social movements, especially the black movement, when identifying uniform treatment as a dimension that would reproduce inequalities – cannot be considered the same idea in the the case of French republicanism, even if both are resistant to the idea of ​​differentiated treatment in terms of citizenship. For the author, in the Brazilian case there is a tension between the vision of equality and the one that preaches the uniform treatment more adapted to the modern principles of citizenship.

We emphasize that these reflections on citizenship studies (Cardoso de Oliveira, 1996a; 2002; 2006; 2010) are central to understanding the characteristics that interfere – or contribute little – with the improvement of the lives of population segments that were and still are excluded from the access to rights in Brazil. Even with the existence of practices that are based on the influences of pluralism

 

legal system, such as the Conflict Mediation Program, it is clear that, even today, a considerable portion of the population is “distant” from the institutions of the justice system, both in its material and symbolic planes.

Based on the data collected, we could see that through socio-legal guidance and people's continuous access to the institutional space provided by the program, this experience has favored the population's search for their rights. However, the data also indicate a decrease in the population's search for the conflict mediation procedure. It is important to remember, however, that the Conflict Mediation Program is based on the notion of legal pluralism and, according to Sinhoretto (2006), practices like this, in general, have limits in their execution. The author mentions that the field of legal pluralism promotes the competition of several instances of conflict resolution, with different negotiation logics and interests, producing different justice results. For her, the individuals who have more knowledge and resources in relation to the appropriation of power will be the ones who will most benefit from the possibilities offered by the plural spaces of negotiation. The opposite, that is, individuals who have limited knowledge and resources have, consequently, limited chances of taking advantage of the possibilities offered by these conciliatory spaces. We also emphasize, as shown throughout the text, that in several studies on access to justice (Sinhoretto, 2006; Amorim, 2008; D'Aráujo, 1996; Pandolfi, Carvalho, Carneiro, Grynszpan, 1999), the authors understand that, even today, a considerable portion of the population is distant from the institutions of the justice system. The challenge of access to justice is not only related to the guarantee of rights, but, above all, to the recognition of rights.

In the case of the Conflict Mediation Program, the data demonstrate a specific type of search/access by the population for the services provided and also a reasonably high level of satisfaction among the people (users) interviewed, both those who resolved their problems through the mechanism/procedure of conflict mediation, as well as those who opted for or sought socio-legal guidance. It is important to highlight that most of the speeches show that the interviewees feel recognized in their rights and that they would again choose this type of service provided by the program to deal with other conflicts. A contrasting aspect of the good level of satisfaction expressed by the interviewees is the discredit of one of the interviewees – leader of the Pedreira Prado Lopes region – in relation to the program. Upon being served by the program, she saw herself once again as part of a conflict in which the other party is hierarchically distinct (superior). For leadership, the The program works only for “ordinary” issues and not for topics that involve “large structures”, in his words: “that involve big people” (Beth).

From this set of information, we can conclude that the majority of the population that accesses the program for the first time is made up of women, with low education, young and adult and with income close to the minimum wage. We can also mention that, around 50% of the cases, the search for the program is driven by the need to deal with family demands and issues. Another aspect is the reports of violence, in which almost 60% of the situations are related to gender violence. The majority of the population claims to have gone to the program on the recommendation of another person assisted by “mouth-to-mouth”, with a high proportion of those who over the years return to the program to be assisted again. Another aspect is that about 60% of the population that accesses the program for the first time, says it was the first institution that was used to deal with the issue/subject.

These data demonstrate a very particular profile of assistance provided by the Conflict Mediation Program. Despite the influence of studies on access to justice in the country used as a basis for reflection, we found some differences in relation to their guidelines: the main one is related to the search for rights claimed by women. The data demonstrate that the program has guaranteed these women's access to the treatment of situations experienced in the domain of the private space, demonstrating the need for judicialization of this sphere. We highlight two main situations that involve this segment of the population in search of rights: (i) the case of alimony – relating to the care of children, the search for paternity and the regulation of visits; and (ii) the case of violence against women – prevailing the hierarchical asymmetry existing in the relationships between men and women. Both situations present aspects and characteristics that, added to the elements already highlighted throughout the text - on the dilemmas related to the paths of citizenship in the Brazilian case - make up the set of challenges related especially to the structures of gender inequalities in the consolidation of democracy. and the universalization of rights in the country.

We found that these processes that seek the democratization of the State and society are continually influenced by the characteristics of Brazilian culture – in this specific case, the country's legal culture. When considering the voltage found nose conceptions de equality e de treatment uniform, by example, we have seen how the arbitrary character of the allocation or recognition of rights is marked by the lack of definition/delimitation in the configurations of the civic world. These aspects are central to understanding the challenges in the expansion and expansion of rights in the country, especially when dealing with the legitimacy of justice. However, the repeated decentralization of justice institutions can be considered, by many scholars, an important step towards the advancement of democratization processes, even if it does not result in broad frameworks for the recognition of rights.

This experience has also provided a space for channeling demands not yet recognized by formal law. In the cases analyzed, informal negotiation mechanisms promoted the participation of different actors in the resolution of their conflicts, and such mechanisms were able to contribute to the construction of the right of recognition - and its legitimacy - according to the profile of the parties and the nature of the conflicts presented. For the most part, as we said, the conflicts were related to intrafamily coexistence, an issue that presents treatment dilemmas within the scope of formal justice. It is known, for example, that in the courts the logic of the contradictory is perpetuated, with no space for dialogue, a constituent element of the program's intervention proposal, which, according to the interviewees, was central in solving their problems. conflicts.

Finally, we observe that the paths for the reformulation of the law, in the sense of privileging the participation and emancipation of the citizens, are complex. One-off changes in the exercise of law are not enough, given that traditional systems and new mechanisms of access to justice are always supported by the same organization of the legal culture, based on the historical development of Brazilian citizenship. In this sense, in order to think about substantive reforms of access to justice, it is necessary to diagnose, firstly, how the processes of legitimacy of justice take place, with special attention to the ways in which citizens recognize the rights operationalized by official judicial and/or extralegal bodies.

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¹⁴³ Text produced from some results found in the author's master's thesis.

¹⁴⁴ Master in Cultural Goods and Social Projects CPDOC/FGV. Specialist in History and Political Cultures UFMG. Specialist in Public Policies DCP/UFMG. arianegontijo@yahoo.com.br

¹⁴⁵ We can find other reflections on the justice system in the studies of: AMORIN, Maria Stella, BURGOS, Marcelo, KANT DE LIMA, Roberto (2002); SADEK, Maria Teresa (1995; 200; 2001); ADORNO, Sérgio (1996); PANDOLFI, Dulce et al. (1999), D'ARAÚJO, Maria Celina (1996).

¹⁴⁶ Cappelletti and Garth (1988) sought to analyze from the “Florence Project” the legal, economic, social and psychological obstacles that hindered or prevented the use of the legal system, aiming to understand how each country (modern democracies) presented their different efforts to overcome these difficulties. obstacles. The authors, Cappelletti and Garth (1988) identified three waves of reform No. access-to-justice movement: (i) guaranteeing access to justice for the poor; (ii) the representation of diffuse rights and (iii) the informalization of conflict resolution procedures.

¹⁴⁷ Social rights represent: the right of access to public goods and services, such as: the right to housing, the right to health, the right to education, the right to public security, among others.

¹⁴⁸ An example of a study on the Special Small Claims Court is the research carried out in the city of Rio de Janeiro by D'Aráujo (1996).

¹⁴⁹ An example of a study on the Special Criminal Court (JECRIM) is the research carried out in the metropolitan region of Rio de Janeiro by Amorim; Burgos; Kant de Lima (2002). Another study addressed the JECRIM in Belo Horizonte, for data access see Batittucci and Santos (2010).

¹⁵⁰ For a better understanding of the work of the Balcão de Direitos, conceived by the NGO Viva Rio, see Souza Neto (2001).

¹⁵¹ The Secretary of State for Social Defense / MG is responsible for promoting the safety of the population of Minas Gerais by developing actions to prevent crime, operational integration of Social Defense agencies, custody and social reintegration of individuals deprived of liberty, providing the improvement of quality of people's lives. Available in: www.seds.mg.gov.br. Accessed on 10/01/2012.

¹⁵² For a better understanding of the teaching, research and extension activities of the Pólos de Cidadania Program, access: http://www.polos.ufmg.org.br. Last accessed on 10/01/2012.

¹⁵³ Graduated in Law from the State University of Rio de Janeiro (1962). Graduated in Full Licentiate in Usual Law and Legislation from Fundação Educação para o Trabalho de Minas Gerais (1975). Master in Political Science from the Federal University of Minas Gerais (1989) and PhD in Philosophy of Law from the Federal University of Minas Gerais (1997). Post-Doctorate in Teaching and Research Methodology from the University of Barcelona / CAPES, in 2002. She is currently a retired associate professor at the Federal University of Minas Gerais. She was one of the founders of the Pólos de Cidadania Program at the Faculty of Law of UFMG.

¹⁵⁴ There are many conceptions about the notion of ideology, with classical and expanded origins in the field of social and human sciences, but an interesting analysis of its characteristics can be seen in Motta (2009), when delving into studies related to the challenges and possibilities in appropriation of political culture by historiography.

¹⁵⁵ Falcão apoud Junqueira (1996) produced a text that became a reference for the field in that period. From the concern with the democratization of the Judiciary, he analyzed the access to justice as a mechanism that may or may not be in favor of the implementation of collective representation of citizens, such as democratic improvement (Junqueira, 1996: 04); considering that in the early 80s, new collective conflicts emerged, which were not referred to the Judiciary, whose access was denied to them, therefore, these conflicts were sent to other informal and parallel, and even illegal, arenas of dispute resolution. conflicts.

¹⁵⁶ On the influence of “guarantee jurists”, see the studies by Sinhoretto (2006), which addresses some of these characters from the Brazilian scene, who, in addition to acting in the field of legal knowledge and judicial practice, developed political activities in other instances, aimed at the discussion of the “Brazilian reality” and “access to justice”.

¹⁵⁷ The notion of legal pluralism is opposed to the image of a homogenized society, based on the presuppositions of state law. This perspective actually highlights the existing fractures between the different social segments; demonstrating, mainly, the libertarian potential of community organizations. That is, declaring that other social bodies also produce unofficial rights and manage conflicts through extralegal mechanisms, such as those found in “Pasárgada”, by Boaventura de Souza Santos (Santos apoud Junqueira, 1996: 04).

¹⁵⁸ D'Araújo (1996) corroborates Junqueira's (1996) argument by mentioning that popular groups had little access to the new official instances of conflict resolution. In an analysis of the Special Small Claims Courts, implemented in the city of Rio de Janeiro, which aimed to serve especially the communities of Pavão/Pavãozinho/Cantagalo, among other Rio de Janeiro slums, it was noticed that most of the people who accessed the Courts to resolve conflicts, it was not related to the popular classes, but to the residents of the south zone of the city (D'Araújo, 1996).

¹⁵⁹ It is important to highlight the history, even if briefly, of this character from the Minas Gerais scenario, since she is considered a central figure in the Belo Horizonte public scene, being recognized for her militancy and performance with social movements. Helena Grego, born in Abaeté, Minas Gerais, graduated in Pharmacy in 1937 from the Faculty of Pharmacy of the former University of Minas Gerais, which in 1965 was renamed the Federal University of Minas Gerais. The activist is recognized nationally and internationally for her political performance. She was one of the founders of the Workers' Party (PT) and the first councilor in the Belo Horizonte City Council, where she served two terms, from 1982 to 1992. Citizenship. She was the creator and creator of several entities; among them, the Human Rights and Citizenship Coordination of the Municipality of Belo Horizonte, the Municipal Council for Women, the Permanent Forum for the Struggle for Human Rights in Belo Horizonte, the Working Group Against Child Labor and the Torture Never Again Movement. She has been awarded several awards and distinctions: Chico Mendes Resistance Award (1995), World Citizenship Award (1999) and the “Che” Guevara Award (2002), among others. In addition, she was nominated to receive the State Prize for Human Rights, in 1998, and was one of the main honorees on the occasion of the national celebrations of the 20th anniversary of the PT, in February 2002. She died on July 28, 2011 in Belo Horizon.

Available in: http://www.ufmg.br/copi/sempre-internas.php?p=submenu&menu_key=2&cont_key=86. Accessed on 10/01/2012.

¹⁶⁰ It was based on the conception of the Center for Mediation and Citizenship that, at a later time, the proposal for the Conflict Mediation Program was formulated.

¹⁶¹ Another practice, similar to these proposals, but prior to them, in the 80s, was the implementation of Community Centers for the Defense of Citizenship in Rio de Janeiro, the so-called CCDCs.

¹⁶² Due to the theoretical-methodological option adopted, we will not work with public policy analysis models, even knowing their importance for the subject in question. We emphasize that such an analytical perspective can certainly be the object of future research/work. We will only highlight how important and influential were two actors in the process of absorbing the Center for Mediation and Citizenship by the State Secretariat for Social Defense – under the name of the Conflict Mediation Program. Coming from the university, we especially highlight one of the creators of the Pólos de Cidadania Program, already mentioned throughout the text, the interviewee Miracy Gustin. When we think about political parties and technicians, we highlight the performance of one of the main managers of the government of the state of Minas Gerais, the current Governor, Antônio Anastasia, who at the time led the campaign and the management model of the former governor. Aécio Neves. In addition, Anastasia during 2005 held the position of Secretary of State for Social Defense (SEDS), accumulating the role of Secretary of Planning and Management (SEPLAG).

¹⁶³ The crime prevention policy in Minas Gerais begins to be developed by the former Superintendence for Crime Prevention (SPEC), which is currently called the Special Coordinator for Crime Prevention (CPEC). This body had its creation determined by Delegated Law 56 - Resolution 5210 of December 12, 2002, having been established in the organizational chart of the State Secretariat for Social Defense/SEDS of the Government of the State of Minas Gerais, with the purpose of to “work with due importance the proposals for social prevention of urban violence and implement No. field of public policies this new paradigm, of thinking public security as a social policy that guarantees, in the first place, the quality of life for all” (LEITE, 2007: 10).

¹⁶⁴ Governor of the State of Minas Gerais/PSDB during two terms: 2003-2006 and 2007-2010.

¹⁶⁵ These modifications can be seen in the following documents: BETWEEN: Mediation, prevention and citizenship (2007); CONFLICT MEDIATION PROGRAM (2009); MEDIATION AND CITIZENSHIP: Conflict Mediation Program (2010); CONFLICT MEDIATION PROGRAM: an experience of community mediation in the context of public policies (2011)