What's happening to the Brazilian legal profession?

It is a fact that renowned and financially successful lawyers have placed law at the top of the list of most sought-after degrees in the country. The latest survey of the national registry of professionals maintained by the Federal Council of the Brazilian Bar Association showed 1 million registered members.

According to IBGE data, there is one lawyer for every 205 inhabitants, meaning that 0,5% of the population works in the legal field.
For each lawyer, the National Council of Justice estimates 102 cases.

Stability and prestige are what everyone seeks, but few achieve. Very few possess both.

The motivation for profitability has even been enhanced, but the commitment to upholding the Democratic Rule of Law and the mission of ensuring citizenship and enforcing constitutional mandates is increasingly being sidelined.

With the advent of social media, lawyers are exposing themselves in publications that promote the opposite of the unwavering defense of the legal order, human rights, and social justice.

Without any shame, they spread reactionary opinions based on everything except the law.

In WhatsApp groups, they produce abundant and unequivocal evidence of prejudice, discrimination, and the trivialization of human dignity.

Regarding the recent controversy involving Mayor Thiago Flores (PMDB) of Ariquemes, in the interior of Rondônia, who decided to censor books dealing with homosexuality and family diversity in public schools, the messages exchanged in lawyers' groups are shocking.

Contrary to what the State Public Prosecutor's Office determined and the Special Commission on Sexual and Gender Diversity of the Federal Council of the Brazilian Bar Association (OAB) declared in a statement of repudiation, some lawyers are joining in support of the medieval decision taken by the mayor and councilors.

One of them, incredibly, instructs parents to tear out pages from books that deal with topics approved by the Ministry of Education, in blatant disregard for several constitutional principles and the Law of Guidelines and Bases of National Education.

Given the spelling errors, if this weren't a group reserved for lawyers, it would be hard to believe that they were inviting the destruction of property paid for with public money.

And he boasts about having secured support for the practice of censorship and destruction that harks back to the moralistic intifada of the 15th century and Nazi practices.

The lawyer and all those who applauded him in the comments forgot about the international commitments that Brazil has made to the International System for the Protection of Human Rights, which includes LGBTI rights, and also about the recognition of same-sex unions by the Supreme Federal Court in order to adapt constitutional guarantees to social reality.

It is absolutely unacceptable for lawyers to seek to promote opinions that are incompatible with their professional duty to ensure the proper application of the law, upon which the prerogatives and value of the legal profession depend.

Fortunately, many lawyers honor the commitment they made upon graduation, but the exposure of those who bring shame to the Institution is greater and more frequent.

The Brazilian Bar Association (OAB) has become a spokesperson for society in struggles marked by historic achievements for ALL citizens, and ALL those who attempted to undermine equal rights have failed thanks to the Order's vigilance.

The time has come for an internal struggle, because the Brazilian Bar Association (OAB) cannot demand from others what some lawyers do not practice.

Anyone can construct and disseminate 'logics' that disregard constitutional guarantees, but lawyers cannot.

It seems that the Brazilian Bar Association (OAB) has lost prominence and voice within its own legal profession.

By majority vote, lawyers followed the OAB's (Brazilian Bar Association) understanding in supporting the parliamentary-media-judicial coup against democracy. The opposite occurs, for example, in campaigns against lowering the age of criminal responsibility.

The Brazilian Bar Association (OAB) must internally reaffirm its commitment to the rights of all, or the legal profession will be condemned to be merely a profitable profession, lacking prestige due to its relevant social function.

Lawyers are plentiful, but few honor the teachings and memory of the glorious unlicensed and provisioned lawyers of the Empire.

Do Luciana Oliveira's blog