Acesso à justiça: a insuficiência da via judicial para a sua efetivação

Abstract

The core objective of this research is to investigate if access to justice is synonymous to access to the courts, confusing thus by the public subjective right of action, conferred to anyone who claims a material right, as advocated Chiovenda and Liebman. To this end, it takes into account some diagnoses, most of them derived from the “Conselho Nacional de Justiça” (National Council of Justice — CNJ), such as the satisfaction of the society for jurisdictional services at national level and the amount of investments made in support of the judiciary power in recent years, compared to the level of litigation and the quality of response that it gives to the cases constantly brought. Initially, it investigates the concept of Justice, from the foundations built by eminent thinkers, like Aristotle, Hans Kelsen and John Rawls, in order to discover the theoretical and philosophical foundations of the idea of access to justice. Then, in the light of a critical analysis, it finds out that access to justice is not a synonymous to access to the courts, which, despite being an important way for such, is insufficient to the full realization of this jus fundamental guarantee. In this scenario, the possibility of resolving conflicts through alternative, non adversarial means reappears, such as conciliation, mediation and arbitration, ways that, in many situations, provide access to the most resourceful and worthy justice. In tailpiece, it defends a necessary reinterpretation of access to justice, based on the disruption of the old paradigm, adopting as a theoretical framework Thomas Kuhn and Boaventura de Sousa Santos. In this sense, under the consideration that access to justice should imply access to a fair legal system, two relevant aspects receive special attention, namely: access to justice as direct access to the rights and the shared jurisdiction, strengthening, once again, the use of the so-called persuasive means and, moreover, democratic participation for obtainment of goods and values, which together make up the social justice. As a consequence, it is seen that the preventive access to justice avoids litigation, and should be primarily fomented by the Executive and Legislative, each within their competence spheres. It is a qualitative research, of markedly bibliographic nature, but at certain times it makes use of judgments given by the “Supremo Tribunal Federal” (Supreme Federal Court — STF) and other national courts as well as data and reports produced by public and private institutions, and scholars of the subject.