Conciliation Week mobilizes courts across Brazil

Courts all over the country will be mobilized for National Conciliation Week, an initiative of the National Council of Justice (CNJ). The proposal of this 17th edition, which will take place from November 7 to 11, is to concentrate efforts in various spheres of the Judiciary - state, federal, and labor - to reconcile the largest possible number of cases. This year's theme is fewer conflicts and more new beginnings.

During 2021, over 1.9 million conciliation hearings were held, and more than 24.6 million sentences were signed. In the Conciliation Week period, about 90,000 hearings were held, and 533,161 sentences were released.

Each court selects the cases that have a possibility of settlement and summonses the parties involved to seek a solution to the conflict. "The guiding principles of the resolution are informality, simplicity, procedural economy, celerity, orality, and procedural flexibility," the council explained. And those interested in participating can register directly with the courts.

However, National Conciliation Week is not the only possibility for those seeking mediation to resolve conflicts. Judicial centers for Conflict Resolution and Citizenship (Cejusc) are spaces that speed up processes, and oft avoid their judicialization.

Among the issues that can be resolved in such hearings are conflicts involving condominium expenses, debts in general, rental contracts, neighborhood law, consumer law, debt collection, regulation or dissolution of a stable civil union, custody, alimony, and visitation regulation.