Conflict Management, Intersubjectivities, and Dilemmas of Demands Towards Recognition of Rights in Brazil

Abstract

The Special Criminal Courts (JECrims) have introduced new debates about the institutional administration of conflicts and about the very legal perception of what conflict is. Traditionally, Law has a negative view of conflict, of something that needs to be eliminated from society and that comes from a perspective of punitive justice anchored in power, and in the State's obligation to bring criminal action. Although the Special Criminal Courts inaugurate a confrontation of paradigms between justice as a punitive institution (old legal discourse) and as an institution for the administration of conflicts (modern legal discourse), the Brazilian Judiciary, specifically the Criminal Justice system, was not constituted as an administrator of conflicts, but as

an architect of punishments, where whoever arrives at the Criminal Justice system has a priori some share of guilt in the criminal act attributed to them, constituting a true inquisitorial tradition. Despite being recent, the JECrims already represent a significant number of ongoing cases in our courts. However, the Special Criminal Courts have faced criticism and difficulties: from their operators who see the courts as a “lesser justice” that receives everyday trivialities considered to have no legal status, and without the legal language and bureaucratic procedures to which they are accustomed; and from the population that demonstrates difficulties in understanding the functioning of these courts, being unaware of their rights that can be exercised there. There is a lack of harmony between the legal categories and the moral dimensions of the conflicts that the court is intended to administer. Many current researchers point to problems and contradictions between the proposals of the Special Criminal Court in relation to the practices of its operators and the logic of operation of our Criminal Justice system, in addition to reflections on alternative forms of institutional conflict management. Thus, we will address these studies, as well as theoretical reflections with classic authors, aiming to broaden and deepen the analyses on the practices and dilemmas of the Special Criminal Courts.