THE PUBLIC DEFENDER'S OFFICE: A FUNCTION ESSENTIAL FOR ACCESS TO JUSTICE AND FOR GUARANTEEING EQUALITY OF ARMS IN LEGAL PROCEEDINGS

Abstract

In the past ten years, the Public Defender's Office has experienced significant growth both in the number of offices distributed across the country and in the prominence of its actions. This evolution reinforces its importance, already recognized in the Federal Constitution, which designates it as an essential function of justice, located in Chapter IV. This research aims to clarify this fundamental role from two main perspectives: the first related to access to justice; the second, to the guarantee of equality of arms in judicial proceedings. To this end, it relies on bibliographic works and relevant documents, with the goal of examining whether, in practice, access to justice has been merely an opportunity to be assisted by someone with legal capacity or if there is, in fact, an effective guarantee of parity of arms in judicial processes. The objective is to promote a satisfying justice that ensures the effectiveness of judicial protection and thus preserves the litigant’s substantive rights.