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Artigo 1º’s staff attorneys work hand in hand with pro bono lawyers from IPB and legal clinics students, to conduct the high profile casework described below.
1. National Litigation aims to mainstream human rights protections using the judicial system. Key activities include:
- Lodging material and moral damage suits against the State in paradigmatic cases of human rights violations to close gaps in the law to protect fundamental rights. Since 2004, the program has initiated twelve suits against the government for gross violations of human rights related to such issues as discrimination and institutional violence. One of the most prominent cases centered on halting the practice of torture and improving detention conditions for juvenile inmates in Sao Paulo State. Although Brazilian Justice is slow and decisions are still subject to appeal, Artigo 1º obtained such important victories as:
- gaining access to administrative investigation for families in cases of arbitrary execution;
- findings of “personal financial responsibility” in a case where civil servants failed to take necessary measures to protect the life of adolescents inmates, as ordered by the Judiciary.
- Participating, as amicus curiae, in Supreme Court cases, involving fundamental rights guarantees. Since 2004, Artigo 1º submitted 26 amicus briefs to the Supreme Court, involving quotas for Afro-Brazilians in public universities, gun control for the civil population, contemporary forms of slavery, religious freedom, inclusion of people with disabilities in the labor market, land demarcation for slaves descendents (quilombos), right to primary education, integral protection of children and adolescents, and federalization of human rights violation lawsuits.
- Spearheading class action suits to, among other things, improve juvenile detention conditions, and expand access to HIV medicines and quality education.
2. International litigation has been pursued through the UN Human Rights Mechanisms and the Inter-American Human Rights System when cases fail to obtain an adequate solution at the national level. Recent efforts regarding the protection of adolescents’ rights include a report to the UN Special Rapporteur on Summary, Arbitrary and Extra-Judicial Executions as well as a report to the UN Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers. Efforts also encompass various requests for provisional measures to the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights, and participation, as experts, in two public hearings conducted by this same Commission.
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