As of 1990, in Brazil, there have been a number of
changes to the applicable Civil Procedure Code, which
dated back to 1973, seeking a more swift resolution of
judicial disputes. In 2005, this objective actually became
a Constitutional guarantee that trials shall not
exceed a reasonable time frame.

In order to speed these changes along, given that the
project of a new Civil Code took over twenty-five years
to be approved, instead of discussing the adoption of
an entirely new procedural code, the legislators chose
to apply changes through the passage of several independent
laws, being that the most important of these
recently became effective, in the past couple of years.

Specifically, we are referring to the Federal laws numbers
11.187/05, 11.232/05, 11.276/06, 11.277/06,
11.280/06, 11.341/06, 11.382/06, 11.418/06,
11.419/06, 11.441/07 and a few legislation proposals
that are pending approval. In sum, it can be said that
this group of laws has the purpose, among others, of
creating greater jurisprudential uniformity; increased
value placed on certain precedents from the Federal
Supreme Court, which also bind direct and indirect
public administration; curbing appeals and decisions
contrary to the rationale previously established by the
Federal Supreme Court; making possible electronic
proceedings; eliminating frivolous proceedings; and
facilitating the means of enforcement.

As it can be seen, such changes promote greater swiftness
to judicial proceedings through the use of simplicity,
agility and democratization, which will certainly result in greater credibility to the Brazilian Judiciary.

At any rate, these important changes positively demonstrate
that the Brazilian legislator is looking to advance
effective access to the courts, so that judicial
decisions are issued in a consistent and swift manner;
rights that are, in fact, guaranteed by the Brazilian
Federal Constitution and are inherent of the Democratic
process.