TEMAS DE COOPERAÇÃO INTERNACIONAL

The third fight refers to the gradual insertion of Brazil in the international legal cooperation
scenario. The strategy of the members from the Prosecutors Office in combating
transnational organized crime, with its international connections, obviously has to be different
from its traditional role against crime at the local level. And its effectiveness depends not
only on the modernization of procedural, legal and organizational instruments, but also
on the he development of international legal cooperation in criminal matters, including
investigations and criminal procedures, with a Comparative Law perspective. In recent years,
there has been a gradual insertion of Brazil in the international legal cooperation scenario
as a signatory in the UN level of the Conventions of Vienna, Palermo and Merida, and in
the european level , of the Strasbourg and Warsaw Conventions, as well as the signing of
several bilateral treaties of mutual assistance in criminal matters and the participation in
networks of international legal cooperation.
Note that the bilateral mutual legal assistance treaties in criminal matters aim to
streamline the international legal cooperation particularly in combating transnational
organized crime, surpassing the traditional means of rogatory letters through the judiciary
and making the action of the Prosecutors Office faster and more effective. However,
for political reasons, paradoxically not always the Prosecutors Office, an independent
institution, is indicated as the central authority in such treaties signed by the Executive
Branch. And in many countries, including Brazil, in such treaties the central authority is
indicated as the Ministry of Justice, a mere bureaucratic intermediary institution linked to
the Executive Branch, devoided of legal standing before the Judiciary, which undermines
the effectiveness and speed of action of the Prosecutors Office. We must therefore strive
to change this situation and definitely include always the Prosecutors Office as the central
organ of such treaties.
Finally, we must bear in mind the differences in the organizations of the Prosecutors
Office from various countries around the world- and even at the regional level - in view
of the different legal traditions of “civil law”, “common law” and others, and the different
attributions conferred to the members of the Prosecutors Office, relative to the models
of criminal investigation and prosecution, in order to make more effective the action of
the Prosecution. In Argentina, for example, as well as in France, the Judge of Instruction
was adopted, while in Brazil and in most countries prevails the adversarial system and
the independence of prosecutors, which could hinder - if the systems are not properly
understood - the international legal cooperation in criminal matters.
Note, for example, that in some countries, like Switzerland, the Prosecutors Office
can have direct access to information covered by bank confidentiality, to combat money
laundering, while in Brazil such access from the Prosecutors Office depends on a judicial
court authorization, which can make it difficult - if the judge is limited by a purely provincial
view, without an international and Comparative Law perspective - to understand the
criminal prosecution for the crime of money laundering in the country. Such difficulties
occurred in a criminal prosecution from the Federal Prosecutors Office in Rio de Janeiro
based on legitimate information, according to the Constitution of Switzerland, that have
been delivered to me personally by the Attorney General of Switzerland because of crimes
committed by tax inspectors through bank offices in that city.
In conclusion, there are dozens of emblematic cases in the last fifteen years in Brazil,
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