Ricardo Couto de Castro, Professor at the Getulio Vargas Foundation (FGV), was the mediator of 2^the Opening Conference, which addressed the topic of Justice, Criminal and Criminal Procedure Reforms at the VII Lisbon Legal Forum. The meeting is an initiative of FGV in partnership with the Brazilian Institute of Public Law (IDP) and the Faculty of Law of the University of Lisbon (FDUL).

The panel was attended by Alexandre de Moraes, Minister of the Supreme Federal Court (STF) and Doctor of Law from the University of São Paulo (USP), Mauro Campbell, Minister of the Superior Court of Justice (STJ), João Pedro Gebran Neto, Judge of the Federal Regional Court of the 4th Region (TRF-4), Felipe Santa Cruz, President of the Federal Council of the Brazilian Bar Association (OAB) and Paulo Sousa Mendes, Doctor of Legal Sciences and professor at FDUL.

Professor Ricardo de Castro opened the debates recording the necessary constitutional analysis that will certainly be carried out by the Supreme Court regarding issues such as imprisonment in the second instance, the presumption of innocence, and even the prospect of encouraging the progression of the criminal system for those who are not associated with criminal commands, issues raised previously by Minister Sérgio Moro in the presentation of his Anti-Crime Bill. In Brazil, he said, it is not uncommon for prisoners to join a faction, when arrested, to survive. How should the State proceed to avoid this? These are the points he opened for debates between the speakers.

Minister Alexandre de Moraes believes that only with a change in mentality can criminal justice evolve and positively impact public safety: “We can change countless laws - and this is very important - and make different public policies, but if we don't change the mentality of criminal justice, we will continue to wipe the ice away,” he said. “I speak with knowledge of the facts, acting on several fronts, as prosecutor, justice and public security secretary, and now as minister of the Supreme Federal Court.”

This was understood by the mayor, Congressman Rodrigo Maia, when in October 2017, he invited the minister and gave him freedom to set up and chair a committee of jurists with the purpose of proposing changes to the legislation to combat organized crime and not simply - as had been done until then - from changing to raising sentences, Moraes recalled. The changes were to the criminal justice structure to combat crime, he added.

All the segments that work in this area, associations, presidents of the courts of justice, general police delegates, public defenders, police commanders, were heard to verify structural problems. Today, the project is being discussed together with that of the Minister of Justice, Sérgio Moro. “It is essential to change the perspectives of criminal justice, which has become used to working hard, but not collectively. A job without a global perspective, while crime was expanding and becoming more sophisticated”.

Mauro Campbell, from the STJ, subscribed to what Minister Moraes mentioned and confirmed that it will not be with legislative changes that public safety problems will be solved, but with a change in public management, in all branches of justice — the civil and military judicial police, the public security apparatus, the judges, ministers, judges, the judiciary as a whole. For the minister, public safety, which requires technique, cannot be treated with amateurism. It is necessary to change the positions of the agents. “My message is that it is necessary to resume monitoring the execution of the sentence. There should be oversight of alternative penalties,” he said.

The TRF4 Judge, João Pedro Gebran Neto, showed the mortality rate in Brazil, stating that inequality is perhaps the main cause of crime, but not the only one. Our country is violent, the prison system is perverse, and the State fails in justice and security. According to the 2016 Infopen survey, today, there are 720,000 prisoners, 5.4% women. 13% are arrested for crimes against individuals and 44% for property crimes. 54% of these people have sentences of less than 8 years. The closed regime by force of law is imposed only on those with sentences of more than 8 years, that is, 54% of those convicted are or should be in the semi-open regime or in the open regime.

The Judge suggests ending the semi-open regime and starting the closed regime with 6 years of imprisonment. Below that number, we would have a different open or open regime, with house arrest with an ankle bracelet, relieving prison units. He also suggests applying to Brazil the experience of the American state of Hawaii, called HOPE Probation. There, the creator changed the penalty system: for minor deviations, minor arrests. After 10 years, the reduction in arrests for drugs or failure was significant.

Felipe Santa Cruz, President of the Federal Council of the Brazilian Bar Association, emphasized at the beginning of his speech the relevance of the meeting in Lisbon. “As incredible as it may seem, perhaps a debate like this with its multiple ideas and the participation of various sectors of Brazilian thought would be impossible to carry out in Brazil,” he said, referring to the moment of intransigence, violence and aggressiveness that some minority sectors try to impose on the majority and on those who actually believe that it is possible to overcome the serious problems of our nation, but this will only happen through the free search for consensus and respect for the opinion of others.

“(I am coming to this debate) with great honor to hear, even, those who think in a variety of ways, because that is the role of all of us and our country is unfortunately experiencing a moment in which this debate should be repeated every week at the Brazilian academy. Congratulations to the organizers.” Santa Cruz added in his speech that security and criminal matters won the passion of the Brazilian people, as it became an act of heroism to live in Brazil's big cities. “The poorer Brazilians are, the harder it is to live in our country's cities.” For him, we cannot think that an acute phase of the same procedure will lead us to a liberating result or different from the one that was produced before.

Concluding the panel, Paulo Sousa Mendes, Professor at FDUL, made a comparative analysis of the collaboration awarded in Brazil with similar laws in force in other parts of the world, such as Portugal, Germany and Italy. In relation to Plea Bargain, negotiating confession practiced in the North American legal system, Sousa Mendes points out that there is confusion that arises in the most common approaches to the topic of award-winning collaboration. “I don't think it's comparable because the negotiation of confession is a waiver of evidence. Inspiration is indirect”. Although both figures fit the general idea of negotiated justice, the confession figure seeks only to dispense evidence for the defendant's collaboration. The professor added that the award-winning collaboration is indirectly inspired by the cooperation agreement, which is another variant of negotiated justice practiced in the United States.

The worst perversion of modern inquisitorial systems, Sousa Mendes points out, is the transfer of criminal investigation records to trial. Thus, it allows the judge to be unilaterally influenced by reading the records and enhances an effect of alliance or solidarity between the perspectives of the Public Prosecutor's Office and the court. “I believe there is room to improve the practice of award-winning collaboration.” The minimum would be to unravel the file containing all the information of the failed negotiation. The maximum that can be desired is the impediment of the judge who approved the agreement to judge as a fundamental guarantee of the impartiality of the trial court.

Check out 2 in full^the Opening Conference: Reforms in Justice, Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure of the 7th Lisbon Legal Forum: