The design of Public Defender’s Office in Brazil: institutional disputes, public policy work and challenges in the context of the Covid‑19 pandemic

Abstract

The objective of the article is to present the design of Public Defender’s Office in Brazil and its trajectory in recent years, from three interrelated axes: the institutional disputes within the justice system, the role of the Defensoria in public policies, and the challenges imposed by Covid‑19 in the operationalization of the free legal aid model. This is a descriptive work, using mainly secondary data, in addition to information collected from exploratory case studies on the role of the Public Defender’s Office of the State of São Paulo in public policies during the pandemic. Beyond the regional specificities that require the work of the Public Defenders in the states in a particular way, the case of São Paulo is used only as an illustration of the role of the Public Defenders as a whole. The main argument is that the Public Defender’s Office, by occupying more and more institutional space, either as a central actor in the individual and collective defense of the rights of the vulnerable population, or as a political actor in the definition and implementation of public policies, has contributed to new institutional accommodations within the justice system and in its interaction with the political system.