TEMAS DE COOPERAÇÃO INTERNACIONAL

Parte VII - Experiências Internacionais
“International Experiences:
The Struggle Of The Prosecutors Office Against Crime”
Geraldo Brindeiro*
The struggle of the Prosecutors Office against organized crime starts at the institutional
level, i.e., to ensure the functional independence of the organization, for without it, it is not
possible to initiate effective criminal prosecutions against criminals. Thus, the first battle
is at the political field, because, unfortunately, organized crime often has roots ingrained
within the very powers of the State. So, it is necessary to institutionalize and maintain an
autonomous Prosecutors Office, financially and administratively, in order to ensure the
functional independence of its members, to promote the appropriate investigations and
criminal prosecutions, free from pressures that may hamper or even completely frustrate
its actions in combating organized crime.
In Brazil, since the entry into force of the Federal Constitution of 1988, we have a Prosecutors
Office with such assurances. However, since the time I was Attorney General of
Brazil (1995 to 2003), certain political groups- and politicians involved in administrative
corruption and promiscuity with organized crime (many of them already indicted and
answering to criminal proceedings) - try, unsuccessfully, through legislative means and
even through constitutional reform, to distort and, if possible, to eliminate the assurances
that ensure the members of the Prosecutors Office the necessary functional independence
- the “soul” of the Prosecutors Office - essential to the effectiveness of its investigative and
persecutory action. Fortunately, thanks to our action in defense of the institution, these
sectors have failed their purpose: on the contrary, the Brazilian Prosecutors Office has
always increased its strength.
Recently, however, there have been new attempts to intimidate the action of the Prosecutors
Office, jeopardizing its functional independence, such as the legislative project
under National Congress evaluation that establishes strict penalties for alleged political
persecution and abuse of power, interestingly written by a Federal Congressman against
whom there are numerous prosecutions for corruption and money laundering initiated by
the Prosecutors Office and against whom there are arrest warrants in about one hundred
and eighty countries for crimes of money laundering.
Then, the next fight is relative to the need to modernize the procedural, legal and
organizational instruments, suitable for the efficient action of the Prosecutors Office in
combating contemporary crime. The biggest challenges to the Prosecutors Office, in the
second half of the XX and XXI century, relates to the new forms of criminal practices, that,
* GERALDO BRINDEIRO, Former Attorney General of Brazil for eight years (from 1995 to 2003), Former President
of the Inter-American Association of Public Prosecutors, later renamed Ibero-American Association of Public Prosecutors
(from 1998 to 2000), and Vice-President of the International Association of Prosecutors (from 1997 to
2004), Master of Laws (LLM) and Doctor of the Science of Law (JSD) by the Yale Law School (USA), is presently
Professor of Law at the University of Brasilia and Deputy Attorney General.
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