ACCESS TO JUSTICE AND CITIZENSHIP: HOW CONSENSUAL MEANS OF SOLUTION AND CONFLICT PREVENTION CAN STRENGTHEN CITIZENSHIP AND RESTORE COMMUNITY TIES

Abstract

 The present study investigates whether consensual means of conflict solution constitute denial of jurisdiction or, instead, represent a paradigmatic change that can serve to strengthen citizenship and democracy. It analyzes the constitutional guarantee of access to Justice and how this provision has been taking place as a public service, based on the premise of the complexity of today's society and its multiple legal relationships, desires, expectations and demands, in an environment of permanent social, political and economic conflicts, which leads to the inevitable judicialization of social relations and the crisis of the Judiciary. Recognizing the impossibility of putting an end to the plethora of demands submitted to the Judiciary's judgment, access to Justice goes through a process of expansion and conceptual enlargement comprising new dimensions, entailing the offer of adequate means of conflict resolution, emerging mediation as a mechanism with the greatest potential to strengthen citizenship. To find an answer to the proposed problem, the analytical-dogmatic method is used, comparing the consensual means of resolving conflicts with the solution awarded through provocation of the state jurisdiction, through bibliographic and documentary research. It starts from the analysis of the justice system in Brazil at its current stage, recognizing the conservation of the state-centric position in the production of legal norms, however, based on a logical-inductive argument, it is proposed the hypothesis that the consensual means of conflict resolution and prevention, especially mediation, can serve as a mechanism for exercising and consolidating citizenship and strengthening community ties.