Institucionalidades da Defensoria Pública da União para o enfrentamento do racismo institucional a partir do Sistema de Justiça

Abstract

Article 134 of the Constitution of the Federative Republic of Brazil provides that “The Public Legal Defense is an essential institution to the jurisdictional function of the State and is responsible for the judicial guidance and the defense, in all levels, of the need [...]”.The legacy of social exclusion sponsored by the Brazilian State in the post-abolition period of slavery categorizes the black population within the concept of “vulnerable social groups”, which is why they have a fair claim on the institutional directions of the Public Legal Defense of the Union. The Brazilian justice system still functions as a mechanism for reproducing racist stereotypes built against blacks. As a result, the aim of this Master's thesis is to assess the extent to which colonialist conceptions and structures create obstacles for the Public Legal Defense to develop internal and external processes to eliminate institutional racism. The dominant theory of human rights, inspired by the ideals of the French Revolution, is based on the idea of rationality in the production of knowledge; legitimizing the proliferation of dehumanizing discourses to the detriment of people who are foreign to the Eurocentric conception of human. The category of race appears as an instrument for reproducing the processes of invisibility and subordination that structure social hierarchies and hegemonic discourse. Institutional racism emerges as a social phenomenon whose discriminatory mechanism acts almost imperceptibly, but is sufficient to legitimize exclusionary behavior by public institutions. To achieve this objective, the methodology used in this study was that of analysis of content, in order to identify the limits and possibilities of the Public Legal Defense. In particular, the Public Legal Defense of the Union, as an instrument to confront institutional racism from the justice system. At the end of this research, it is observed that, despite its constitutional mission to promote human rights, the Public Legal Defense of the Union is part of a power structure that reproduces and legitimizes the maintenance of racial hierarchies, despite their potential.