Justice and Security are issues intrinsically linked to the guarantee of freedom and, therefore, dear to all citizens of the world. The comment is made by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Portugal, Augusto Santos Silva, who attended the opening table of VII Legal Forum, held on the campus of the Faculty of Law of the University of Lisbon (FDUL), one of the organizers of the meeting together with the Getulio Vargas Foundation (FGV) and the Brazilian Institute of Public Law (IDP).

Also on the opening table were Pedro Romano Martinez, Director of the FDUL, Carlos Blanco de Morais, Full Professor at the college, Gilmar Mendes, Minister of the Supreme Federal Court (STF) and Professor of the IDP, Rodrigo Maia, President of the Chamber of Deputies, João Otávio de Noronha, President of the Supreme Court of Justice (STJ), and the Director of the Brazilian School of Public Administration and Business Administration at FGV, Flavio Vasconcelos.

Rodrigo Maia recalled that these issues are in dialogue with the recent debates held within the framework of the Brazilian Congress and Senate. For him, the technological revolution requires new regulation, because it impacts representative democracy, which is under permanent challenge and not only in Brazil. This would be a moment for social debate, because it is necessary to build a new institutional relationship between Powers and with society. Under this revolution, Maia said, it is necessary to arrive at solutions through dialogue. The Mayor also recalled that Fake news and the regulation of cyberspace will also be discussed at this 7th Forum.

The STF Minister, Gilmar Mendes, reinforced the solidity of legal cooperation between Brazil and Portugal, recalling that the meeting serves to “wield” arguments and discuss the sensitive issues that mark the development of Justice and Security, especially public and social security, which are of great relevance in the world. Pedro Romano Martinez, Director of the FDUL, went in the same direction, saying that the legal problems “are not that different on both sides of the Atlantic.”

For Professor Carlos Blanco de Morais, law constitutes one of the strongest links between Brazil and Portugal and the Forum represents a locus of excellence where different segments of the law of the two countries with freedom are issues of enormous political complexity.

Watch the opening session in its entirety: