Judge Maria Izabel Pena Pieranti acted in several high-profile cases in Brazil in recent years. Her name had appeared in the press because, from her court in Rio de Janeiro, she dealt with the German consul who in 2022 murdered her husband in the apartment they shared next to Ipanema beach. He also took charge of pestilent underworld affairs, such as the file on Adriano Nóbrega, an elite police officer converted into a sought-after hitman who embodied like no one else the murky relationships between the security forces, organized crime and Rio politics before taking their secrets to the grave. But the magistrate returned strongly to the headlines last January because in the last month before retiring she received a payroll that left her compatriots scandalized. Pieranti earned 1.1 million reais in November 2023, which amounts to $210,000. 80% corresponded to compensation for vacations not taken or for being on duty.
Super salaries like this are one of the reasons why Brazil’s judicial system is the most expensive in the world, according to a comparative study prepared by the Treasury. Spending on justice represents 1.6% of Brazilian GDP. That is, Brazilian courts cost four times more than the international average and six times more than those in France or Thailand. And by purchasing within the borders, it absorbs more funds from the public treasury than the police forces, firefighters and the prison system combined. Or more than the Bolsa Familia program for the most needy.
The debate around the excessive cost has been resurrected this week with the publication of the detailed x-ray in numbers prepared by an official body, the National Council of Justice.
Spending on the Judiciary in 2023 can be summarized in a handful of figures: it amounted to 132 billion reais (or 25 billion dollars), which means that each Brazilian, whether a centenarian or a newborn baby, was equivalent to 125 dollars a year. Nine out of every ten of these reals are allocated to salaries and extras provided for in the regulations. There are benefits for all tastes. There is the sale of vacations – a widespread practice that consists of not taking part of the rest and charging for it -, the premiums established for the excess of cases attended, for accumulating tasks such as participating in a conference, aid for housing and food, subsistence allowance…
The newspaper State states this Friday in an editorial that the CNJ report “reinforces the need to put an end to this farce.” And he adds: “The scenario he draws shows an elite of the public service that only needs to collect the award [un derecho que se pagaba a los señores] to complete the list of extravagant benefits they receive at the expense of commoners.”
The large payroll that the State paid to Judge Pieranti in November 2023 is not unique or exceptional, although it may seem that way. This February, 46 magistrates of the courts of the State of Rondonia also pocketed more than a million reais per head, according to Estadão. All legal, of course. The editorial of Folha de S.Paulo gives one of the keys: “Endowed with enormous negotiating power, the union [judicial] “It never satisfies the wasteful and corporatist spirit.”
In one of those contradictions so typical of Brazil, the money paid to this handful of robes is protected by law even though it multiplies by 25 the salary ceiling of public officials, solemnly inscribed in the Constitution and which is equivalent to the salary of the judges of the Court Supreme.
The enormous amounts of information that are public under the Brazilian Transparency laws guarantee the Brazilian press and civil society rich raw material to keep track of their taxes. The debate on the privileges of judges and prosecutors is also heated because Congress is debating a proposed constitutional amendment to resume the five-year periods, which have been extinct for years. If it went ahead, the base salary would automatically increase every five years for magistrates.
Even the president of the Supreme Court, Luis Roberto Barroso, has recognized that the pressure of justice on public coffers is high. “The Judiciary is an expensive service. Therefore, we are committed to providing good service,” he recently promised. Barroso took the opportunity to complain that the togados are a recurring and easy target of popular anger. He also recalled that this country holds another world record, that of litigation. “We have to think about how to confront the epidemic of judicialization that exists in Brazil, we are world record holders,” he said. The 18,000 judges have 80 million cases on their tables right now.
And the worst thing for taxpayers who submit income tax returns these days is that expenses for magistrates and courts are increasing. They have skyrocketed 60% in 15 years. Brazilians are perfectly aware that the togados are the most privileged among the caste of politicians and high officials. In addition to being the public employees with the highest salaries, they are entitled to two months of vacation, double that stipulated in the law for their compatriots.
The Supreme Court has just announced that it is bringing forward its sessions by one day to the end of June, the last ones before the July recess, so that their honorable Members can travel to Lisbon to participate in a legal forum organized by the company of Judge Gilmar Mendes and which brings together every year in Europe to representatives of the three powers. Part of the who’s who of Brasilia meets again on the other side of the Atlantic.
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