\nINTEGRITY SYSTEM (SI)<\/strong>
\nComprised of judicial and police institutions targeting compliance with the law in cases of corruption and money laundering<\/p>\n
CRIMES & COURT CASES<\/strong> PROCEDURES & OUTCOMES<\/strong> Analyzing the proportion of time taken by each stage of the proceedings in one court case\u2014which takes 6.5 years, on average, to complete\u2014the study concluded that the greatest amount of time is dedicated to the judicial fact-finding phase of the process, i.e., the evidentiary hearing by the judge. According to Ribeiro, who, like Arantes is not part of the study\u2019s research team, the data show that cases expiring due to statutes of limitation are not caused by the introduction of legal remedies by the defense in order to intentionally produce delays in the process but by the inefficiency of the judiciary itself.<\/p>\n Considered high, the case dismissal rate caught the researchers\u2019 attention. In the domain that was analyzed, one in every five cases was closed without a judicial decision. \u201cStrictly speaking, it cannot be said that dismissal means impunity because the state did, in fact, act in that case: after the police investigation, a member of the Public Prosecutor\u2019s Office or a judge decided to dismiss the case. The rate is quite high, but it may be related to merely technical issues not associated with impunity,\u201d notes Fernando Corr\u00eaa, a data scientist and the ABJ\u2019s technical director. In Arantes\u2019s view, the question of why cases are dismissed should be answered by future investigations.<\/p>\n The survey also analyzed more than 3,000 judicial decisions in the superior courts in the same states of Alagoas, Rio de Janeiro, S\u00e3o Paulo, and in the Federal District. The objective was to understand whether cases with jurisdictional privilege\u2014which allow cases involving public authorities to be tried directly in the appellate courts\u2014lead to bottlenecks. The study\u2019s conclusion was that approximately 45% of the requests for jurisdictional privilege are denied, which, according to the researchers, would be an indication of the system\u2019s inefficiency. This conclusion is reached because the reasons for the denial of a request are already stipulated in the legislation\u2014for example, when the defendant is removed from office and the case returns to the lower court or when it is a case that is under the Electoral Court\u2019s jurisdiction. \u201cIf the rules were different, maybe the system would be more efficient. That is, there would be fewer interruptions in processing cases, which in turn could lead to faster investigations,\u201d says Corr\u00eaa.<\/p>\n Statistics regarding the Federal Police also caught the attention of the researchers. Over an average investigation period of 936 days, approximately 2.5 years, 95% of the 3,885 investigations that were opened and closed between 2003 and 2018 were resolved. Guilty parties were identified in 38% of these cases, while, for 57%, it was concluded that despite the charges filed, no crime had been committed or the individual accused was not in fact responsible. Although the overall data suggest high efficiency, the numbers are viewed with some reservations. For UFMG sociologist Ribeiro, it would be necessary to investigate what actually happened in these cases. \u201cSince these police investigations are classified\u2014and not public like most judicial proceedings\u2014we can\u2019t know why there are so many allegations that don\u2019t result in criminal charges or indications of guilty parties,\u201d says Ribeiro.<\/p>\n Cases should not run out the statute of limitations. Such a situation demonstrates the state\u2019s inefficiency, says Ludmila Ribeiro<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Actors in the debate<\/strong> Some statements were of a general nature, such as \u201cthe minimum wage in Brazil is fair,\u201d \u201cthe law is equal for all,\u201d and \u201cpoverty and inequality are at the root of corruption.\u201d Other statements specifically aimed at legal mechanisms, e.g., \u201cprison detention during appeals combats corruption,\u201d \u201cpretrial detention is unfair,\u201d \u201c\u2019coercive conduction\u2019 [forcibly bringing a subject of interest to formal police questioning] violates individual rights.\u201d The objective was twofold: to understand the respondents\u2019 views regarding their activities and the way those activities were introduced into society. According to political scientist Jos\u00e9 Ver\u00edssimo, a researcher at NUPPs, \u201cby inviting participants to assemble a fairly complex map of the circumstances and opinions held regarding their work, the Q method highlights the way they understand their daily activity.\u201d The set of statements was prepared collectively by the research team, which proposed two hypothetical types of actors: garantistas-contratualistas [those who believe in contractual guarantees regarding the constitution] and garantistas-igualitaristas [believers in egalitarian constitutional guarantees]. These two types are defined, respectively, as those who prioritize individual rights before the law and those who \u201crecognize that structural inequalities challenge Justice in the sense that the law should be \u2018equal for all\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n Although it was sent to 1,842 recipients, including judges, local and state prosecutors, and Federal Police investigators, the questionnaire was answered by only 40 people. The data then went through two phases of analysis. First, the two ideal types, designed while drafting the questionnaire, were adjusted, allowing the team to establish some correlations: among the 27 who fit the \u201ccontractual guarantees\u201d profile, it is believed that \u201cprison detention during court appeals combats corruption, that procedural slowness leads to impunity, and that multiple appeals cause the statute of limitations to expire,\u201d according to the research report. The 13 who fit the \u201cegalitarian guarantees\u201d profile do not believe that faster methods and procedures will bring about effectiveness and guarantee justice; these people \u201cprove to be contrary, for example, to coercive conduction, are less critical of politics as a factor in controlling the judiciary, and highly favor a structural evaluation of the circumstances surrounding criminal contexts.\u201d<\/p>\n In the second phase, the data obtained from the questionnaires were combined with the first part of the research; that is, the researchers observed the progress of court cases under the responsibility of the judges who had responded to the questionnaire. Among the \u201cegalitarian\u201d judges, 8% of cases were closed due to the expiration of the statute of limitations, while this rate was 3% among the \u201ccontractual\u201d judges; however, the latter group dismissed more cases (19% as opposed to 8%) and convicted fewer people (40% vs. 46%). The group under study was small, and the method itself was a nonrepresentative, inductive tool that related beliefs and behaviors. For these reasons, the researchers warn that the conclusions cannot be extended to the entire Brazilian justice system. \u201cThe Q method indicates that the way the group expresses issues encountered in professional practice is a trend within the community being analyzed,\u201d explains Mois\u00e9s.<\/p>\n For Ver\u00edssimo, the results reflect current legal debates, such as detention after criminal conviction in the appellate court [some types of cases in Brazil allow those who are convicted to remain free until all appeals are exhausted], which is now under discussion in the Federal Supreme Court (STF). \u201cThe question that summarizes the content of the questionnaire could be: what kind of guarantees to the individual, at what costs to individuals, can be applied to the judicial process? This is the debate the judiciary is having today,\u201d explains the NUPPs political scientist. For Arantes, too, the two profiles found coincide with the principal debates around how to combat corruption: \u201cOne group of actors believes that justice should function according to procedural rules and guarantee to all involved the full right to act that these rules confer. For the other group, the justice system must embark on something new, going beyond the rules in search of an ultimate objective.\u201d<\/p>\n Developed over approximately one year, beginning in 2018, the study is innovative in the way it conducted an unprecedented survey to gather procedural information with the aid of computational tools. These tools are described in detail in the report available on the CNJ website as part of the Justice Research series. \u201cAmong the research developed by the Brazilian Association of Jurimetrics, this is an atypical study. There are several layers of interpretation and a lot of material for discussion here,\u201d Corr\u00eaa concludes. In addition to the final report, the survey data can also be found on the ABJ website<\/a>.<\/p>\n Published in June 2019<\/p>\n Study<\/strong>
\n\u2022 Active and passive corruption
\n\u2022 Influence peddling
\n\u2022 Money laundering<\/p>\n
\n\u2022 Active, when the case is in progress
\n\u2022 Charges dismissed
\n\u2022 Conviction
\n\u2022 Dismissed without a resolution of the merits
\n\u2022 Mixed results (conviction and acquittal)
\n\u2022 Statute of limitations expired <\/div>\n
\nThe second axis of the study, aimed at identifying the profiles of actors who fight against corruption, was developed with the application of the Q methodology, which the research coordinator defines as a \u201ctool for capturing subjectivity.\u201d The methodology consists of an electronic form with statements about the area of activity researched, in this case the criminal justice system and corruption. When filling out the forms, each respondent rated the information in two ways: by organizing each statement according to the relevance they assigned to it and by indicating the degree to which they identified with it on a scale ranging from -5 (completely disagree) to +5 (completely agree).<\/p>\n![](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/080-083_Impunidade_02_280_ING-0-desktop.png\")
\n <\/picture>\n
\nMOIS\u00c9S, J. A. (coord.) Criminal Justice, impunity and the statute of limitations. National Council of Justice<\/strong>. Online. 2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A study of the fight against corruption from the perspective of police investigations and criminal prosecutions","protected":false},"author":657,"featured_media":322013,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[165],"tags":[390],"coauthors":[1946],"class_list":["post-322012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-humanities","tag-law"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/657"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=322012"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322012\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":323932,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322012\/revisions\/323932"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/322013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=322012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=322012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=322012"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=322012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}