STF decides that application of the Maria da Penha Law does not depend on family or emotional ties with the aggressor

Based on the guiding vote of the president of the STF, Edson Fachin, it was decided that urgent protective measures must be adopted whenever there is a risk to the integrity of women who are victims of gender-based violence.

The discussion reached the Supreme Court through an appeal by the Public Ministry of Minas Gerais against a court decision that denied the granting of a protective measure to a woman threatened by a neighbor.

The TJ (Court of Justice) of Minas Gerais understood that the Maria da Penha Law should be restricted to situations of violence occurring within the scope of family, domestic or affective relationships, which would not apply to neighborhood relationships.

The Supreme Court ministers, however, assessed that the restrictive interpretation of the law disregards the structural nature of gender-based violence and violates fundamental rights provided for in the Federal Constitution. As there is general repercussion, the decision must be followed by all courts in Brazil.

According to Fachin, rapporteur of the appeal, limiting the application of the Maria da Penha Law to cases of violence registered in a family, domestic or emotional environment ends up emptying the instruments for protecting rights.

"Violence against women must be understood as a phenomenon rooted in a historical process of inequality that supports asymmetrical relational models of power and naturalizes the inferiorization and objectification of women", said the president of the STF.

According to him, the Maria da Penha Law is a legal protection mechanism against gender-based violence and a "true normative microsystem aimed at overcoming a persistent culture of contempt for women".

Following the rapporteur, Minister Alexandre de Moraes highlighted the need to speed up access to the protective measure. "The Supreme Court is universalizing the protection of women," he said. "In cases of 'stalking' (persecution), for example, the bond exists in the aggressor's head," he noted.

Minister André Mendonça agreed and highlighted that physical or psychological violence against women based on gender can be perpetrated by people outside the family relationship. "Sometimes it's a friendly relationship, sometimes it's a person you know from work, and sometimes it's even a stranger."

The only woman on the Court, Minister Cármen Lúcia said that society is misogynistic and that women's rights are going through a period of regression. "There is a picture of insufficiency not only in the structures already created, which could be more efficient, but also in education for civility."

"It's not a question of a relationship of affection. Those who love don't kill. Femicide is practiced, the murder of a woman is practiced, for a matter of power: men think they have the power of life and death against us and kill. Period. There is no relationship of affection that leads to violence, beatings, killing and maiming", he said.

The ministers also defined that any judge or police chief can grant a protective measure in case of risk to the woman's integrity, with subsequent referral to specialized courts, where available, to confirm or revoke the decision.

"In life as it is, the judge on duty rejects it without justification, says it is not urgent, leaves it until Monday and, in the meantime, one of us dies", warned Cármen. "We women are in a worse situation in terms of rights than we were 20 years ago."

She recalled that Maria da Penha herself, the activist who gave her name to the 2006 law, had her protective measure breached by the attacker, who ended up arrested in Natal (RN) on August 9th. "With this judgment, the STF shows that it is neither blind nor deaf to what is happening against all of us women."

"I hope that there will be a change and that, in 20 years, there won't be another court judge constantly needing to ask people not to kill us," said Cármen, who defended the implementation of training and awareness programs on violence against women for Brazilian magistrates.

The thesis approved by the Supreme Court also provides that the protection of women includes cases of political gender violence, a hypothesis in which the eventual granting of protective measures is the responsibility of the Electoral Court.

Maria da Penha Law completes 20 years as a milestone in the fight against violence

Another relevant innovation came in 2019, when police chiefs and police officers began to be able to grant emergency protective measures in situations of imminent risk, especially in municipalities where there is no judge available at the time of the incident.