A irrepetibilidade das decisões judiciais e a ideologia neoliberal do prêmio CNJ de qualidade

Abstract

This study aimed to analyze the Brazilian award policy established by the National Council of Justice (CNJ) since 2013, which rewards various courts in categories such as “Diamond,” “Gold,” “Silver,” “Bronze,” and, starting in 2024, “Excellence,” for the best institution in each category. At the same time, courts across the country have also been awarding their judges annually in categories such as “Diamond,” “Gold,” “Silver,” or “Bronze.” The main criterion for calculating the honor is productivity, which essentially considers the reduction of the case backlog and the reduction of the average processing time of the cases. The regulation of the competition is governed by the CNJ itself, without significant participation from civil society— nor even from OAB (Ordem dos Advogados do Brasil, the Brazilian Bar Association) — or the inclusion of evaluation criteria such as the material quality of case management and the satisfaction of parties and lawyers with the functioning of the judiciary. Thus, in a scenario marked by the particularities inherent to each case, judges and their respective courts are objectively evaluated based mainly on numerical and statistical criteria, disregarding the unique and unrepeatable nature of judicial decisions. In parallel, this stimulus to productivity—through competition and positive reinforcement to judges and courts that achieve notable productivity—comes without any material investment to improve the quality of judicial services. This reflects a neoliberal perspective in which the blame for the slowness of the judiciary is shifted to the individuals who operate it, disregarding other factors such as the lack of greater public investment or, at the very least, more rational budget allocation. This scenario worsens with initiatives from states such as Rio Grande do Sul, which pay bonuses to court employees conditioned on obtaining the CNJ award (State Law No. 16,016, of October 31, 2023). Therefore, this paper examined the (im)possibility of treating judicial decisions as statistically and numerically comparable for productivity purposes, the risks of their potential distortion in this process, and the social consequences of this competition encouraged by the public authorities. The analysis was developed particularly in light of Mangabeira Unger’s thinking on democracy, the lack of institutional boldness of the courts, and the need to rethink the role of judges in society.