The Minister of Justice, Sérgio Moro, began the work of the first day of the 7th Lisbon Legal Forum, speaking at 1^the Opening Conference on the Democratic Rule of Law and the Fight against Organized Crime. The Conference was introduced by Paula Costa e Silva, President of the Brazilian Law Institute, PhD in Legal Sciences and Professor at the Faculty of Law of the University of Lisbon (FDUL).

Thanks to the invitation of Professor Carlos Blanco de Morais, PhD in Law from the University of Lisbon, Moro emphasized the importance of maintaining permanent legal dialogue between Brazil and Portugal, the result of the partnership between the Getulio Vargas Foundation (FGV), the Brazilian Institute of Public Law (IDP) and the FDUL.

The central issue in Brazil, according to Moro, is violent crime, considering that, in 2016, there were 60,000 homicides in the country, a sad historical record. Although a drop in this total was observed in 2019, it cannot yet be inferred that this trend is crystallized. This is the scenario that would justify speeding up the processing of your Anti-Crime Bill in the Chamber of Deputies, recognizing that there is an appropriate maturation period.

The Minister said it was a priority to confront existing criminal organizations, which are armed and powerful and operate with territorial control in certain localities dedicated to trafficking in arms and drugs, which is a challenge to justice and public safety actions.

Brazil is also living with the serious problem of corruption, approaching the hundredth position in the Transparency International ranking. Faced with the challenges of corruption, organized crime, and violent crime, the Justice Ministry decided to present a package with simple but fundamental measures to address the three problems, noted Sérgio Moro. In his assessment, the three go hand in hand, since most of the murders constitute a “market dispute” between criminal organizations or charges made with blood against drug users. On the other hand, organizations often use bribes to seek impunity and it can be said that corruption diverts the public resources necessary to combat organized crime by the State.

Moro said he saw no problem with the fact that the President of the Chamber of Deputies, Rodrigo Maia, placed the Anti-Crime Bill alongside another good bill, carried out by a committee of jurists chaired by the Supreme Federal Court (STF) minister, Alexandre de Moraes. “These are converging projects”. For the minister, there is no incompatibility - if both are approved, it will be a great gain for the country, he says. First, there must be a discussion in the Parliament, which has the freedom and autonomy to forward the process.

In presenting the general lines of his Anti-Crime Project, he addressed, among others, the topic that has been discussed by the STF, at least since 2016, and which concerns the possibility of executing a criminal conviction after the trial of an appellate court and no longer waiting for the final decision of the case by a higher court. “In the project, we put this clearly in the ordinary legislation.” For him, such a decision must be contextualized in Brazil, where there are a very significant number of lawsuits and appeals before the higher courts. The Brazilian Superior Court of Justice (STJ) receives around 250,000 new cases each year, which, due to the existing structure, makes it impossible to judge within a reasonable time, the Minister assessed.

In the same way, although there have been significant advances in the STF in granting it greater discretion in the exercise of jurisdiction, it still receives significant numbers each year, around 50,000 new cases. “It's very difficult for them to come to an end within a reasonable time. In our view, this does not violate the presumption of innocence much more linked to the evidentiary issue than to the appeal effect”. The Ministry's proposal is to establish as a rule that a conviction be enforced, but exceptionally, both the court issuing the decision and the superior courts may assign suspensive effect to any appeal filed when that appeal is plausible.

Below are the other points of the Moro Anti-Crime Project in full below 1^the Opening Conference: