CITIZENSHIP, ACCESS TO JUSTICE, AND PUBLIC SAFETY GOVERNANCE WITHIN THE JUDICIARY: CHALLENGES AND PERSPECTIVES IN LIQUID MODERNITY

Abstract

This article analyzes the intrinsic and inseparable relationship between the fundamental right of access to justice and the imperative of a robust, specialized, and strategic institutional security within the Brazilian Judiciary. The investigation starts from the premise that access to justice transcends the purely procedural dimension, configuring itself as a guarantee of systemic integrity. Using the "reform waves" of Mauro Cappelletti and Bryant Garth as a theoretical framework, the study supports the existence of a "fourth wave": institutional security as a material prerequisite for citizenship. Under the sociological lens of Zygmunt Bauman's "liquid modernity" and Ulrich Beck's "risk society," it examines how diffuse fear and the judicialization of insecurity impose a need for proactive governance on the Judiciary, embodied by the Judicial Police (CNJ Resolutions No. 291/2019 and No. 344/2020). It concludes that institutional protection is not a corporate privilege but an instrument for preserving the jurisdictional function and judicial independence in the face of contemporary threats.