The (NECESSARY) REALIZATION OF THE HUMAN RIGHTS OF INCARCERATED PEOPLE BY THE BRAZILIAN COURTS
Human Rights; Inter-American System; Criminal Execution; Prison System; Conventionality Control.
Despite the extensive regulation within the Brazilian legal system, a series of occurrences can still be observed within the national prison system that demonstrate the structural disarray related to the criminal justice system, which routinely registers several violations of human rights protected by the Inter-American Human Rights Protection System (IAHRPS). This raises the central question of this research: "Have Brazilian courts, in their rulings, enabled the realization of the human rights of incarcerated individuals, particularly those stemming from the Inter-American System?". As a methodological approach, the decisions of the following courts will be used as the object of study: the Supreme Federal Court (STF), the Superior Court of Justice (STJ), the Federal Regional Court of the 5th Region (TRF5), and the Court of Justice of Rio Grande do Norte (TJRN). The aim is to present considerations on the situation of incarcerated individuals in Brazil, taking into account the current state of the art. Subsequently, the norms protecting human rights for this group will be listed, starting with the UN System, the Inter-American System, and domestic legislation. Finally, the application of human rights standards for incarcerated individuals by the Brazilian judiciary will be analyzed, adopting the methodological model of bibliographic and jurisprudential research, through qualitative and quantitative analysis of the content extracted from the decisions issued by these courts, using their official websites for consultation. As a temporal framework, jurisprudence starting from January 11, 2022, will be used, referring to the publication of Recommendation No. 123 of the National Council of Justice (CNJ), which aims to alert Brazilian judiciary bodies to the observance of international human rights treaties and conventions and the use of jurisprudence from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. Additionally, Resolution No. 364 of the CNJ, the National Judiciary Pact for Human Rights, will be used as a basis for this research, which addressed a set of measures established to promote human rights within the Judiciary. The relevance of the research lies in the need to discuss the realization of the rights of individuals deprived of their liberty, as well as its connection to the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) No. 16. The findings indicate that despite some progress in promoting and realizing human rights through the judiciary, the Brazilian state only partially fulfills its internationally agreed obligations concerning human rights. There remains a persistent omission regarding the essential rights of this vulnerable population, necessitating the implementation of these Inter-American standards by the country's courts.