Opinion (José Lúcio / Judge): Courts and information.
It is not uncommon to be in conversation with interlocutors that neither can be considered the most uneducated and uninformed and speak of courts and judges give me account suddenly they are thinking in some subjects with eighteenth-century wigs severely wielding wooden hammers those cracking lobsters and crabs.
José Lúcio
(Judge President of Beja County)
The vision that bring recorded has evidently originated in films and series of American or British origin. They themselves have never had any personal experience to enable them to more accurate picture. They never entered in court. And usually causes them sincere surprise clarify that we here have not even wigs of pombalinos times or brewery hammers.
This observation leads directly to a truth well-known but often neglected: it's big, It is huge, ignorance and misinformation prevailing among us about the reality of judicial life.
Ignorance and misinformation, because one opens the way to the other, and the two are fertile ground for all sorts of manipulations. Civic education in much would benefit from some basic culture of the judiciary and its institutions, but in this area the outlook is bleak. Confusion creates misunderstanding, and so are not surprising public reactions we have seen often (sometimes in relation to court decisions that could not be other, sometimes with obvious misunderstanding of the various stakeholders and their functions, often with gross deformities on the subject of the news).
Note that this ignorance and disinformation, widespread among the general public, patents are soon among the message-bearers, the media professionals. To deal with the economy or education newsrooms already require someone who at least master the specific terminology of these areas, and have some knowledge of their subjects, but to address justice issues, even the most delicate, normally serves every intern unable to distinguish indictment sentence.
This justifies and requires the effort that can be done to bring the issue to the judiciary Cimeiro plan of informative activity. Enhancing the relevance of Justice issues, as a key issue in the community, contributes to ward off the topic of the news of banks, areas par excellence of superficiality and sensationalism. When those responsible will be realizing the importance and implications of the subjects will be required to seek to improve the quality of information. The very prestige of the desktop drag the need for qualification of the professionals involved and relaying the message of rigor.
Hence the importance of bringing justice to information, and information to justice. The better knowledge and greater familiarity with the life of the judiciary can only benefit the connection between its protagonists and the whole of Portuguese society. The proximity policy, obviously without abandoning the gravity and composure that the application of justice always requires, seems the best way to spread the social body a picture of Justice and its more faithful to reality accomplishments that we live every day in courts.
And the visibility and public awareness are natural attribute of the bodies that star in the powers and functions of the state, are legislative, executive or judicial, The measure being a good indicator of the projection achieved by its activity in the whole of society in which they live.
(Text written under the previous rule to spell AO1990, by the author's option)
