Representatives defended, at the (Supreme Federal Court), this Wednesday (25), the payment of extra amounts to the category, the so-called penduricalhos. They argued that judges “barely have a snack” and that due to their complexity and volume of cases.
At the beginning of this month, the minister that are not provided for by law, in the three Powers, at the municipal, state and national levels. He gave 60 days for payments of this nature to be identified and anything that was not provided for by law should be stopped.
The minister also, in a decision this week, suspended the restrictions provided for in state laws for members of the Judiciary and the .
Both decisions began to be analyzed this Wednesday, but ministers have not yet started voting. On the first day, the parties were heard. In addition to several lawyers from entities that represent careers benefiting from penduricalhos and who joined the action as amici curiae (friends of the court).
Claudia Marcia de Carvalho Soares, who represented ABMT (Brazilian Association of Labor Magistrates) spoke about what she called indirect remuneration. At that moment, she said that “first-degree judges don’t have a car, they pay for fuel out of their own pocket, they don’t have a functional apartment, they don’t have health insurance, they don’t have a cafeteria, they don’t have water and they don’t have coffee. Judges have almost nothing, except a car, they barely have snacks.”
She also complained about the use of the expression penduricalho, stating that the term has a negative connotation. Payments made by public bodies to public servants as if they were compensation and which are not subject to the constitutional ceiling became popularly known in this way.
Lawyer Alberto Pavie Ribeiro spoke for the AMB (Association of Brazilian Magistrates), who followed, as a line of argument, the thesis that the Justice system in Brazil is very productive.
Ribeiro also stated that there is a shortage of magistrates in the country, because the majority of candidates in the competitions fail their grades. For him, the obvious conclusion is that the career is not attractive. “There is no escaping the conclusion that what is being offered in terms of remuneration is not enough to attract prepared candidates.”
