“Estão mentindo. Cadê os nomes das pessoas que estão sendo torturadas?”: reflexões sobre o conceito de tortura em atos decisórios de 1º grau no estado do Ceará (1997-2023)

Abstract

In Brazil, torture was only recognized as a crime in 1997, through Law No. 9.455/97. Historically, the practice has been associated with the logic of slavery and the modus operandi of the military dictatorship. The concept of torture, with the birth of international conventions and Brazilian law, has since shown itself to be in constant semantic dispute, permeating social and political criteria, which has had an impact on the reading and application of the provision by justice bodies, scholars and organized civil society. Recognizing that torture is a pertinent issue for the state of Ceará, the scene of thousands of complaints, and observing the boiling, for at least a decade, of bodies and environments for debating and reporting these crimes, this work sought to understand how first-degree judgments in the state's criminal justice system behaved until December 2023. The methodology used was a bibliographical and documentary review on the subject, in Brazil and Ceará, and a qualitative analysis of legal data obtained through the TJCE's search system. The work also used the Content Analysis methodology, taught by Laurence Bardin, for the judgments in which the sentence went into more depth about the facts and the conceptualization of torture in the specific case, where the defendants were public officials. The research identified challenges in the application of the law, especially in the concept of the crime and the practices that flow into the judiciary, taking into account the environment of the practice, the victims, the defendant and the elements and contexts used to configure torture.