The Procedure of Evidence Taking in the Brazilian Criminal Trial.

The Brazilian criminal procedure law needs reform. To adapt the repressive Code of Criminal Procedure to the progressive Constitution of 1988, numerous modifications were made to the former. Despite this, the desired changes to the trial setting and to safeguard the defendant’s procedural rights were not achieved. This work seeks to assess whether the procedural safeguards afforded to Brazilian defendants at criminal trials are efficient and to remedy its main problematic features.

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The Brazilian criminal procedure law needs reform. In contrast to the progressive Constitution of 1988, the current Code of Criminal Procedure of 1941 is repressive and highly formalistic. As to adapt the Code of Criminal Procedure to the Constitution, numerous modifications were made to the former. Despite these laws partly modifying both features of procedural and evidence law, the desired changes to the trial setting and, more importantly, in effectively safeguarding the defendant's procedural rights were not achieved. Hence, this research seeks to assess whether and to what extent the procedural safeguards afforded to Brazilian defendants at criminal trials are efficient. This was achieved by means of a comparative study where the procedural safeguards afforded to German and US-American defendants were examined. This analysis seeks to lead to the identification of the main problematic features of the Brazilian Code of criminal procedure and to make suggestions to its improvement.