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Brazil’s Amazonian states push for court reforms in bid for justice

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Brazil’s Supreme Court has sworn in its first justice with an Amazonian background in almost 20 years. Flávio Dino de Castro e Costa, a former federal judge who served as a governor and a senator for the state of Maranhão and as minister of justice for the past year, took office on Feb. 22. A close ally of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Dino has stressed his Amazonian origins: Maranhão is one of the states that make up Brazil’s Legal Amazon region; another is Amazonas, where Dino traces his father’s side of the family. “I consider myself a man from the Amazonian region,” he told senators during his confirmation hearing in November 2023. His appointment to Brazil’s highest court is unusual. Historically, the country’s nine Amazonian states have gone virtually unrepresented at the top of the Brazilian judiciary. In its 134 years, the Supreme Court has had only two justices born in the Amazon. It’s a similar story for the Superior Court of Justice, the highest appeals court in Brazil; only four judges from the Amazon region have served on that court since 1988. Experts, activists, Indigenous advocates and lawyers from Amazonian states have long pushed for a reform of the federal court system in Brazil. Their aim is to boost their representation in these tribunals, which are of special interest for the Amazon: much of the illegal activity in the region is intertwined with environmental, Indigenous, mining and land reform issues — all of which fall under federal…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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