The Public Defender’s Office of the State of , a body that provides free legal assistance to people who cannot afford lawyers, turns 20 this Friday (9) amid internal tensions.
The institution grew stronger and expanded its operations throughout the state. Part of the career, however, criticizes a move away from the body’s original social focus and the adoption of practices similar to those of other Judiciary institutions, such as the expansion of benefits and additional payments to its members.
“The Public Defender’s Office today makes a difference in São Paulo, in addition to serving as a model for other states, but we see the growth of a strong corporatist spirit”, says FGV Direito SP professor Luciana Gross, member of the Public Defender’s Office Advisory Council in the chair of renowned knowledge.
Part of these changes occurred during the management of the current general public defender, Luciana Jordão, appointed in 2024 by the governor (Republicans).
She sent Alesp (Legislative Assembly of the State of São Paulo) a project approved on an urgent basis that established Gade (Advisory Group on Structural Demands). Collective actions with greater impact must observe parameters defined by Gade, changing the way this type of litigation is planned within the Public Defender’s Office.
The project was processed with support from the Tarcísio base and was approved last August.
For critics, Gade concentrates in the upper administration strategic decisions currently taken by specialized centers, which historically carry out actions in areas such as human rights, housing, health and police violence. According to these defenders, the change could reduce the autonomy of these areas and limit the institution’s actions on issues sensitive to the state government.
In 2021, for example, the Prison Situation Center took action to force the São Paulo government to vaccinate people deprived of their liberty against . In 2023, the Center for the Promotion and Defense of Women’s Rights sued the State for hindering access to legal services in the public network. In 2025, the Housing and Urban Planning Center monitored and prosecuted conflicts related to evictions and demolitions in the Moinho favela, in the central region of the capital.
In a note, the Defender’s Office says that Gade’s role is to offer technical support to areas of activity, “following practices already adopted by other institutions in the Justice system”, and denies that the initiative takes away the defenders’ functional autonomy.
Gross sees signs of centralization in recent administrative management, but emphasizes that this is not an exclusive feature of the current administration. “The problem is not facilitating this or that government, but weakening the role of the Public Defender’s Office in dialogue with social movements”, he says.
The same project approved by Alesp foresees the creation of 140 positions and establishes compensation for defenders who work in conditions classified as particularly difficult.
The estimated financial impact of the project is R$36.9 million in 2025, R$99.2 million in 2026 and R$169 million in 2027. The Public Defender’s Office’s total budget in 2025 was R$1.4 billion. The institution currently has 848 defenders.
The process of expanding the Ombudsman’s Office also included, such as five-year periods, six-year periods, bonus leave and the discussion on compensatory leave for the accumulation of cases — funds that do not fall within the constitutional ceiling.
In October, the Sheet showed that defenders of this type, also known as “hangers”, before an eventual approval of the administrative reform.
“The Public Defender’s Office does not inaugurate this logic, but emulates immoral and unconstitutional practices from other careers to meet the pressures of public defenders who, like judges and prosecutors, abandon the legitimate fight for better remuneration conditions for the immediacy of penduricalhos”, says Rafael Viegas, doctor in public administration and researcher at Enap (National School of Public Administration).
According to Gross, this advance is expressed in the prioritization of agendas specifically focused on the careers of defenders, to the detriment of other careers within the institution, such as psychologists and social workers.
Another point of tension was a rule issued by Jordão in April that conditions the interaction of defenders with journalists on authorization from management. The body states that the measure “contributes to guiding and strengthening the position of the Public Defender’s Office.”
Months later, disagreements over the agency’s transparency policies became public. During a session of the Superior Council, the general ombudsman of the Public Defender’s Office, Camila Marques, demanded explanations about the interruption of broadcasts of the collegiate’s meetings on YouTube.
The demand was directed to the first deputy defender general, Bruna Simões, who stated: “I chose not to respond to the ombudsman general because she, in a meeting with me, said that she doesn’t talk to me, so I feel absolutely comfortable not responding.”
Marques .
A Sheet showed in December that the institution about payments, and the information was only corrected after the publication of the report.
The Defender’s Office says that the expansion of the structure was accompanied by investments in technology and training and that administrative improvement is necessary to keep up with the growth in demand, “which in some cases has grown more than ten times in the last 20 years”.
The institution states that, of the more than 30 million cases treated from 2007 to 2025, 2.6 million in the last year alone.
“As we celebrate two decades, the biggest challenge is to preserve this founding spirit and the link with the entities and social movements that fought so hard for its creation. It will be essential that institutional arrangements or technological innovations do not create new barriers where there should be bridges”, says the Ombudsman General of the Public Defender’s Office, Camila Marques.
