Early Childhood Legal Framework on the Brazilian Judiciary

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The study is in the book “Early Childhood in the Judiciary”, which has just been released.

With its judicial application still in its infancy, the Early Childhood Legal Framework (MLPI) has had little impact on guaranteeing all basic rights for children aged zero to six in Brazil. This is because most references to the legislation in the country's courts are related to vp r&d email database the criminal area. This was one of the conclusions of the research “ A macrosystemic analysis of legal data from judicial decisions and evaluation of judicial behavior ”, the results of which are published in the book “ Early Childhood in the Judiciary ”.

Launched on March 13, the work is the result of a research project developed by the Diversity and Inclusion Program of the Rio de Janeiro Law School (FGV Direito Rio) in partnership with the Center for Technology and Society (CTS) of the same institution. The objective was to evaluate, in quantitative and qualitative terms, the impact of the MLPI (Law No. 13,257/16) on judicial decisions in Brazilian courts, in order to demonstrate whether and how this rule is incorporated into judicial practice.

To this end, the researchers analyzed decisions from the Federal Supreme Court (STF), the Superior Court of Justice (STJ) and seven State Courts of Justice: Acre, Alagoas, Amazonas, Mato Grosso do Sul, Ceará, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. Four Federal Regional Courts were also targeted by the survey: TRF1, TRF2, TRF3 and TRF5. There were also 26 interviews with professionals from the justice system involved in some way with the topics covered by the MLPI.

Although the Legal Framework for Early Childhood covers a range of policies, such as health, education, welfare and social assistance, the courts are mostly called upon to address issues related to the Code of Criminal Procedure. According to the study, most references to the Framework occur in cases involving requests to replace pre-trial detention with house arrest. According to the law, this is a right of pregnant women, mothers with children up to 12 years old, or men, if they are the sole guardians of children of the same age.

In the STF alone, this request represents almost 90% of the decisions that cite the MLPI. Regarding all the cases analyzed, the majority of the decisions are related to the crime of drug trafficking (61.42%) and involve only women (73.69%). In addition, the proportion of decisions with an unfavorable result regarding the replacement of the type of imprisonment is greater than those that are favorable. This shows the little application of this provision of the Legal Framework designed to protect and promote the development of children in early childhood.