Access to justice and inequalities: a theoretical study based on the Public Defender's Office of the State of São Paulo

• Grant number: 23/17529-6
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Doctorate
• Start date: June 01, 2024
• End date: November 30, 2024
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Law
• Principal Investigator: Luciana Gross Cunha
• Grantee: Maurício Buosi Lemes
• Supervisor: Rebecca Sandefur
• Host Institution: Escola de Direito de São Paulo. Fundação Getúlio Vargas (FGV). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: Arizona State University, Tempe (ASU), United States
• Associated to the scholarship: 21/02397-1 - The role of the specialized centers of the Public Defender's Office of the State of São Paulo in the making of public policies, BP.DR

Abstract

This internship abroad project seeks to develop a theoretical study on the dimensions of the concept of access to justice and its relationship with the field of social inequalities, based on the design and institutional performance of the São Paulo Public Defender's Office in public policies. The specific objectives are: a) to map out in the contemporary academic debate the main factors raised as conditioning and/or limiting access to justice for individuals and social groups; b) to identify how the theoretical field of access to justice has incorporated different social markers of inequality (such as class, race/ethnicity, gender, sexuality, age, territorial origin, disability) into its formulations; c) to deep the analysis of the empirical results of the research into the design and institutional performance of the specialized centers of the Public Defender's Office of São Paulo in public policies, from the theoretical perspective of access to justice and inequalities; d) to characterize the possible effects of the performance of the specialized centers in public policies on the institutional access to justice policies conducted by the Public Defender's Office; e) to offer recommendations for improving public access to justice policies in Brazil, in the light of the analyses carried out in the previous stages. From a methodological point of view, the proposal is characterized as a theoretical study, based on surveying, organizing, and systematizing references from the contemporary field around access to justice and inequalities, as well as deepening the analysis of the empirical results obtained in the research in Brazil, in the light of this debate.