On September 5, 2022, the Justice Tribunal of the Brazilian state of Rio de Janeiro (Tribunal de Justiça do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, TJRJ) inaugurated two criminal courts specializing in prosecuting criminal organizations. Prosecutions by the new courts will be conducted in accordance with:
- The Criminal Organization Law (Lei No. 12,850, de 2 de Agosto de 2013), which provides for criminal investigations, the means of obtaining evidence, related criminal offenses, and criminal procedure. This law defines a criminal organization as “the association of four or more people[,] structurally organized and characterized by the division of tasks, even if informally, with the objective of obtaining, directly or indirectly, an advantage of any nature, through the perpetration of criminal offenses, whose maximum sentences exceed four years, or which are transnational in nature.” (Lei No. 12.850, art. 1(§ 1).)
- The Money Laundering Law (Lei No. 9,613, de 3 de Março de 1998), which provides for crimes of “‘laundering’ or concealment of assets, rights, and values.”
- Article 288-A of the Penal Code (Código Penal, Decreto-Lei No. 2.848, de 7 de Dezembro de 1940), which determines that to “create, organize, integrate, maintain, or fund a paramilitary organization, private militia, or criminal group or squad for the purpose of committing any of the crimes provided for in the Penal Code” is punishable by four to eight years in prison.
The purpose of the new criminal courts is to “speed up the prosecution of militias, money laundering and corruption crimes, in addition to preventing judges from forums and districts in general from being threatened by criminal groups, centralizing the analysis and judgment of these crimes in the capital.” The president of the TJRJ, Justice Henrique Carlos de Andrade Figueira, explained that a total of nine judges will adjudicate the new courts’ cases, with all the judges gathered in a single registry office (cartório) to streamline the process. The judges and court officials (serventuários) will come from other courts that were converted and reorganized and whose personnel were redistributed. The courts are exclusively responsible for prosecuting the crimes of criminal organizations, paramilitary organizations, private militias, and criminal groups or squads, as well as the crimes of money laundering and the concealing of assets, rights, and values.