EDUCATION IN RIGHTS BY PUBLIC DEFENSORS AS A NEW RENEWAL WAVE FOR ACCESS TO JUSTICE

Abstract

One of the most prominent subjects in constitutional law is the right of access to justice. This is because of its relevance: access to justice is a metaright that allows the realization of other rights. This means that cannot be a democratic rule of law without proper access to justice. One of the main works concerning the analysis of the theme consists in Garth and Cappelletti's “Access to Justice”. In this book, the main obstacles to access to justice are identified, as well as three solutions (the so- called waves). The first concerns the economic aspects. Thus, access to justice was studied from its quantitative perspective of justice for the poor, with the development of institutes such as the exemption of costs and the strengthening of the legal aid. The second refers to advances in collective protection (class actions) and aims to protect rights whose ownership is undefined or whose judicial protection does not bring enough benefits from an individual perspective. Finally, the third wave perceives bureaucratization as an obstacle to access to justice, thus proposing its overcoming by the development of a multi-door system. Recently, new waves have been pointed by the doctrine. Economides argues for the existence of a fourth wave, which takes care of the humanistic formation of judicial actors, while Roger teaches the existence of a fifth, regarding international courts. Through the use of the concretizing constitutional hermeneutics, it is argued that one of the biggest challenges for effective access to justice is the lack of knowledge about rights, especially by those in a vulnerable situation. This lack of information results in inaccessibility of justice and education in rights, constitutional obligation of the Public Defenders, shows itself as a way to overcome this obstacle, and therefore can be characterized as a new wave of access to justice.