O direito fundamental e humano de acesso à justiça dos trabalhadores beneficiários da justiça gratuita em tempos de reforma trabalhista

Abstract

This research analyzed if the Labor Reform Law reduced the human and fundamental right of access to Justice for workers who are beneficiaries of the gratuity of justice. The analysis starts form the unprecedented legal provisions that provided for the conviction of the employee benefiting from gratuity of justice in procedural expenses as court costs for not attending the inaugural court hearing as a condition for filing a new lawsuit, expert fees in case of succumbance in the subject matter of the expert opinion and attorneys' fees. It started from the premise that workers are part of a vulnerable social group because they are the weakest part of the employment relationship, which denotes that workers who benefit from gratuity of justice occupy a position of even more vulnerability, which is not restricted to the work relationship, but extends to the procedural relationship and the guarantee of workers broad access to Justice. This reflection is made from the perspective of Mauro Cappelletti and Bryan Garth's theory of access to Justice and their emblematic book Acesso à Justiça (1988) and also from the perspective of Boaventura de Sousa Santos, and his books “Para além do pensamento abissal” (2007a), “O fim do império cognitivo” (2018b), “Por uma revolução democrática da justiça” (2011), “O estado e o direito na transição pósmoderna” (1990) e “Um discurso sobre as ciências” (2010b) whose last book demonstrates the proposed method, in which scientific knowledge is revealed mainly from a social paradigm. The purpose of this comparison is to ascertain whether the new provisions of the Labor Reform Law signify a violation of the fundamental and human right of access to Justice, especially under the focus of the authors Mauro Cappelletti, Bryant Garth and Boaventura de Sousa Santos.