O Ministério Público como instituição de garantia e sua condição de gatekeeper do sistema de justiça criminal na democracia substancial: a missão de conter tendências autoritárias, de evitar punições injustas e impunidades

Abstract

The research investigates the role of the Public Prosecutor's Office as a guarantee institution and its mission as gatekeeper of the criminal justice system in the model of a substantial democracy, especially with the aim of containing authoritarian tendencies, avoiding unfair punishments and impunity. This study is grounded in the dialectical method, as it discusses the issues from various theoretical frameworks through bibliographic research, focusing not only on scientific texts in the legal field but also from other areas, such as literature. It also resorts, for illustrative purposes, to jurisprudential research and statistical data, considering its qualitative nature. To this end, it assumes that democracy is the best form of government for the protection of fundamental rights in all their dimensions, but recognizing that the model of a merely formal democracy is insufficient, and that it is necessary to move towards a substantial democracy, based on Luigi Ferrajoli's theory of guaranteeism, which is the main theoretical framework of the present research. Therefore, due to its importance for the realization of fundamental rights, democracy needs to be protected, notably in the face of a reality that reveals the resurgence of authoritarian tendencies that end up causing the erosion of the law, with special emphasis on the criminal system, which has become one of the preferred loci for the flourishing of these tendencies. In this line, the figure of the Public Prosecutor's Office gains special emphasis, which is, according to the theory of legal guarantees, a legitimate institution of guarantees aimed not only at defending democracy, but also fundamental rights, as the Federal Constitution of 1988 leaves no doubt about. And so that the Public Prosecutor's Office faithfully fulfills its mission, the theory of criminal legal guarantees is adopted as the starting point in this research. However, since it is recognized that this is not a finished theory, in conclusion, the idea of a dynamic guarantee system that dialogues with other knowledge and other critical theories of law is defended, which is more appropriate for the complexity of the current world and the model of a Democratic State of Law, which has the obligation to protect fundamental rights in all their dimensions. To this end, bibliographical, jurisprudential and statistical data research was carried out, using the dialectical method.