Governance in the Brazilian Federal Public Defenders’ Office

Abstract

The Public Defenders' Office is responsible for providing access to justice for vuln erable citizens. This agency needs to adopt good governance standards to achieve good performance. Although socially important, governance in this type of organization has been little studied. Aiming to fill that gap, this paper identifies and discusses standards of good governance in the Brazilian Federal Public Defenders' Office, as well as relationships between its dimensions and variables. The research included 14 in-depth interviews and building and validating a questionnaire to measure the perceptions of governance in that agency. The results show four factors of governance: Control and Accountability, Social Participation, Strategic Resources, and Access to Justice. It was observed that public defenders and administrative staff do not perceive control mechanisms to be part of governance, perceive little or no social participation in decision-making processes, and perceive that some working conditions and actions to develop the Public Defenders' Office personnel are absent. This study contributes to the advancement of the literature on the administration of justice, proposes a Public Defenders' Governance Scale, and reflects on the relationship between performance, access to justice and other dimensions of governance. Public Defenders' Office, as well as relationships between its dimensions and variables. This study contributes to the advancement of literature on the administration of justice, which generally has a greater focus on courts and neglects other organizations in the justice system. It also proposes a governance scale by way of a questionnaire that can be useful to researchers and practitioners alike in assessing the management of public defense bodies. Additionally, underlying the discussion on governance, this article reflects on the relationships between performance, understood here as access to justice and other dimensions of governance. Public GovernanceThe concept of governance comes from several theoretical approaches. The Agency and Transaction Costs theories and the approach of stakeholders form the basis for this concept. Similarly, the multilevel governance and policy networks approaches provide support for understanding public governance. From this perspective, governance refers to the management of relationships among several stakeholders as a means to solve conflicts that could threaten to divert the mutual gains of stakeholders. 3 Another view of the concept of governance is related to a way of governing, moving from a hierarchical model to a more cooperative form, that can include several state and non-state stakeholders. These two meanings of governance deal with stakeholder relationships and the mechanisms used to manage such relationships. However, while the first concept is more related to the scope of private relations, the latter generally falls within the scope of the state, where public governance is exercised.Public governance involves actions related to the decision-making process, the f...

The autonomy of public defender's offices: a systematic comparison between Latin American countries

“…On the other hand, the Brazilian PDO has a board composed only of public defenders elected by their peers, which represents an appropriation of the board of directors by the agents themselves. This isolates the PDO from democratic controls, causing an effect contrary to the expectations (Buta et al, 2020). That is, the Brazilian PDO's board of directors does not function as an instrument of control of the principal over the agent, but as an instrument that allows the PDO to isolate itself from society, making democratic control over its bureaucracy unfeasible.…”

“…There are variations between the institutional structures of the Latin-American PDOs. For example, the Brazilian PDOs are autonomous agencies unrelated to any of the state's branches (Buta et al, 2020). In Argentina, PDOs can be linked to the Judiciary; it can also be subordinated to the head of the Public Prosecution Service; or even form a two-headed institution together with the Public Prosecution Service (Smulovitz, 2019).…”

Indicadores de desempenho da Defensoria Pública: reflexões teóricas e agenda de pesquisa

“…Tendo em vista esse cenário, compreende-se a relevância de investigar o desempenho da Defensoria Pública, a qual exige permanente aprimoramento de suas atividades para que o seu público-alvo, consistente em pessoas em situação de vulnerabilidade de forma ampla, receba um serviço de qualidade, notadamente ao se considerar que o Brasil é um país cuja desigualdade social e de renda é significativa (NUNES, 2020;BARROS et al, 2000) e que o acesso à justiça consiste em importante indicador para as atividades da Defensoria Pública (BUTA et al, 2020). Não há, contudo, como se abordar o aprimoramento de atividades sem controle e avaliação.…”

“…Assim, faz-se necessário o fomento de pesquisas acerca da Administração da Justiça, a fim de possibilitar a formulação de contribuições pragmáticas para o Sistema de Justiça, suprindo-se lacunas existentes, as quais são ainda mais perceptíveis em relação à Defensoria Pública (BUTA et al, 2020).…”

“…Constatam-se pesquisas sobre desempenho de Tribunais judiciais (SÁTIRO; SOUSA, 2021;CASTRO, 2011;ELBIALY, 2011), inclusive com propostas de modelos teóricometodológicos (GOMES; GUIMARÃES, 2013). Todavia, verificam-se lacunas de pesquisa sobre desempenho de outras instituições do Sistema de Justiça, a exemplo da Defensoria Pública (BUTA et al, 2020).…”