{"id":4303,"date":"2014-10-30T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-10-30T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/new.conectas.org.inf.br\/wp\/noticias\/quotas-for-public-defenders\/"},"modified":"2018-01-25T16:53:52","modified_gmt":"2018-01-25T16:53:52","slug":"quotas-for-public-defenders","status":"publish","type":"noticia","link":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/en\/noticias\/quotas-for-public-defenders\/","title":"Quotas for public defenders","content":"<div class=\"tts_content_wrapper_1\" ><p>The S\u00e3o Paulo State Public Defender\u2019s Office took a historic step this Thursday (October 23).\u00a0Currently at six votes in favor to one against, its Higher Council is poised to approve the creation of racial quotas for the next public entrance examination for Public Defenders.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"width: 350px; height: 263px; float: left;\" title=\"Sheila de Carvalho\/ Conectas\" src=\"\/arquivos\/editor\/images\/IMG-20141023-WA0000%5B1%5D(1).jpg\" alt=\"\" longdesc=\"The strong presence of black movements and civil society organizations influenced the vote\" \/>The decision will only be formalized when the votes of all 11 Council members have been cast.\u00a0Nevertheless, the six votes in favor already make it possible to declare victory. The next step will be to determine how the quota system will work.<\/p>\n<p>Conectas accompanied the voting session, where there was a strong presence of black social movements, civil society organizations, students and lawyers.<\/p>\n<p>The session was adjourned after one of the members requested more time to analyze the case.\u00a0The Council will meet again next Thursday, October 30, or on Friday, November 7, to hear the votes of the four remaining members.<br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: none;\" src=\"\/\/e.infogr.am\/voting-public-defenders-office\" width=\"700\" height=\"938\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<div style=\"width: 100%; border-top: 1px solid #acacac; padding-top: 3px; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10px; text-align: center;\"><\/div>\n<p>This is a historic moment that could put an end to the monopoly of the white man as the standard public defender. The falsity of the myth of \u201cBrazilian racial democracy\u201d has been widely demonstrated in scientific research and can easily be seen by observing government agencies, whether in the Judiciary or not.<\/p>\n<p>Although the majority of the Brazilian population, 50%, is made up of blacks and \u2018pardos\u2019 (dark-skinned people), only 20% of the new composition of the lower house of Congress is black and just 22% of the employees in the Judiciary hired through public entrance examinations are black. There is, however, one area where the vast majority of people are black: 82% of the poorest Brazilians are black.<\/p>\n<p>Racial exclusion is evident when dealing with the institutions of the justice system. One symbolic example is the Judiciary, where recently published data by the National Justice Council (CNJ) reveal that 64% of Brazilian judges are men and 82% are white. Only 14% describe themselves as \u2018pardos\u2019 and 1% as black. Black lawyers and jurists in public service represent just 22% of the total. The number of black judges in the country\u2019s Higher Courts is less than 10%.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA heterogeneous and diversified society like ours deserves an equivalent justice system that is empowered in the struggle to reduce racial inequality and racism in Brazilian society, including in the formation of the personnel of these institutions,\u201d said Rafael Cust\u00f3dio, coordinator of the Justice program at Conectas.<\/p>\n<p>Given this scenario of disproportionality, we believe that affirmative action policies are fundamental in correcting the racial disparity in the country. This is already the case in higher education, where the black population used to represent 7% of all university students in 2002 and, a decade later, the figure had risen to 35%.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.conjur.com.br\/2014-out-22\/acoes-afirmativas-deixarao-defensoria-publica-democratica\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Affirmative action<\/a> in the corridors of power helps reduce the marginality of a particular social group and it follows the spirit of the Constitution and the Racial Equality Act. It is also a way for Brazil to honor its international discourse. The country has been committed to promoting racial equality for four decades.<\/p>\n<p>The existing laws permit the S\u00e3o Paulo Public Defender\u2019s Office to adopt racial quotas in its public entrance examinations.\u00a0\u201cWhat is at stake is the opportunity for such a valuable institution for the democratic rule of law to take a step towards consolidating social justice, starting with itself, and implementing a racially democratic Public Defender\u2019s Office,\u201d said Sheila de Carvalho, a lawyer at Conectas.<\/p>\n<p>Conectas togheter Articulation Human Rights Justice and\u00a0Center for the Study of Labor Relations and Inequality rendered an opinion to the Superior Council of Public Defenser&#8217;s Office advocating the creation of such affirmative action policies.<\/p>\n<p>Recently, dozens of jurists published a latter in favor of racial quotas in the contests of the Public Defender&#8217;s Office of S\u00e3o Paulo.<\/p>\n<p>Read <a href=\"http:\/\/www.conjur.com.br\/2014-out-22\/acoes-afirmativas-deixarao-defensoria-publica-democratica\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a> article in Conjur on Affirmative Action in Advocacy<\/p>\n<p>Read <a href=\"https:\/\/conectas.org\/arquivos\/editor\/files\/Manifesta%c3%a7%c3%a3o%20-%20A%c3%a7%c3%b5es%20Afirmativas%20na%20DPSP%20-%20Final(1).pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a> the full text of the Opinion Conectas JUSDH and CEERT<\/p>\n<p>Read <a href=\"https:\/\/conectas.org\/arquivos\/editor\/files\/Manifesto%20em%20defesa%20das%20cotas%20na%20Defensoria.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a> the letter of the jurists in favor of racial quotas in Advocacy<\/p>\n<\/div><div class=\"tts__custom-position_bottom_fixed\" ><\/div>","excerpt":"<p>In a historic vote, Public Defender\u2019s Office all but approves racial quotas<\/p>\n","author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[7],"tags":[110,719],"tema":[12278],"class_list":["post-4303","noticia","type-noticia","status-publish","hentry","category-news","tag-public-defender","tag-racial-quotas","tema-democracy-and-human-rights-movement"],"acf":{"author":false},"yoast":{"focuskw":"","title":"","metadesc":"","linkdex":"","metakeywords":"","meta-robots-noindex":"","meta-robots-nofollow":"","meta-robots-adv":"","canonical":"","redirect":"","opengraph-title":"","opengraph-description":"","opengraph-image":"","twitter-title":"","twitter-description":"","twitter-image":""},"featured_image":[],"terms":{"acoes_categorias":[],"acoes_tags":[],"category":[{"term_id":7,"name":"News","slug":"news","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":7,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":1550,"filter":"raw","term_order":"0","permalink":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/en\/category\/news\/","relative_link":"category\/news\/","langs":{"en":"news","br":"noticia-conectas"}}],"post_tag":[{"term_id":110,"name":"public defender","slug":"public-defender","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":110,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":14,"filter":"raw","term_order":"0","permalink":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/en\/tag\/public-defender\/","relative_link":"tag\/public-defender\/","langs":{"en":"public-defender","br":"defensoria-publica"}},{"term_id":719,"name":"Racial Quotas","slug":"racial-quotas","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":719,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":2,"filter":"raw","term_order":"0","permalink":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/en\/tag\/racial-quotas\/","relative_link":"tag\/racial-quotas\/","langs":{"en":"racial-quotas","br":null}}]},"author_name":"Leonardo Medeiros","author_nicename":"leonardo-medeiros","protected":false,"langs":{"en":"quotas-for-public-defenders","br":"cotas-para-defensores"},"permalink":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/en\/noticias\/quotas-for-public-defenders\/","relative_url":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/en\/noticias\/quotas-for-public-defenders\/","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/noticias\/4303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/noticias"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/noticia"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4303"},{"taxonomy":"tema","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tema?post=4303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}