Nowadays there is a very clear awareness that a diploma may be necessary, but not sufficient to enhance a profession, a career or an activity. The country of bachelors imported the culture of Coimbra in which the ruby ring was a passport to financial success and the rise to the upper classes in a highly hierarchical society.
Already in the early days of São Francisco, the first law school operating in Brazil, there were those who submitted to the rituals of legal learning only to satisfy their parents’ wishes. So they didn’t use it. Nonetheless, they did not fail to contribute to the progress of the young nation, which later made the mistake of transforming itself into a republic.
Now that Brazil has more law faculties than all the others that exist in the rest of the planet, the day will come when there will not be a Brazilian without a degree in juridical sciences. This could be positive, if alongside the rights – profuse and infinite – we also taught to respect duties, to assume responsibilities and to fulfill obligations. Unfortunately, that’s not what happens.
The multiplication of Faculties has made the industry of judicialization proliferate. Brazil is the most belligerent country on the face of the earth. And it has transformed the Judiciary into a group that does not want to give way to the healthier culture, the one that proposes the consensual settlement of disputes. The judicial system of Tupiniquim is insane and irrational: five judges, two ordinary, who fight only for competence, and three special. Four instances and a chaotic framework of appeals, propitiating the interminable duration of the processes. Be healthy to wait for a final decision.
Brazilian Justice suggests something melancholy: not always whoever is right will see himself victorious in a claim. There are deviations, there is excessive bureaucracy, there is an unhealthy protagonism. Cases are judged on the basis of the names of the parties. Prejudice is worth more than the content of the documents.
But today’s reflection is to remember that many of the first Arcadas graduates did not dedicate themselves adequately to the universe of law. See, for example, the figure of Rafael de Aguiar Paes de Barros, from the class of 1854-1858. Son of Bento Paes de Barros and Leonarda Aguiar Paes de Barros, the first barons of Itu, he was born in that city, on December 28, 1835. His brother, Antônio de Aguiar Barros, was the Marquis of Itu. Although his curriculum vitae shows him to have been a lawyer in Itu and a farmer in Jundiaí, in reality he preferred less boring activities. For example, the breeding of racehorses. For this reason he is one of the creators of the Jockey Club of São Paulo, whose foundation was preceded by the former Clube de Corridas.
Ideologically he was a liberal and then a republican. He became a great propagandist of the Republic. A member of the Itu Convention in 1873, he was a councilor of the Paulista Republican Party and considered one of the pillars of the First Republic, especially in its preparatory phase, when the beneficial regime was replaced, under the serene and prudent command of a respected man and magnanimous statesman , as was Pedro II, was hostile and the most sensible men rationally opposed it.
Abolitionist, never owned slaves. He has always used his free arm and was one of the founders of the Sociedade Promotora de Imigração, which he presides over. He is also one of the founders of the newspaper A Provincia de São Paulo, which later became the now traditional O Estado de São Paulo, the famous “Estadão”. He wrote assiduously for the paper between 1878 and 1884.
His interest in the neediest made him one of the fighters for the maintenance of the Santa Casa de Misericórdia de São Paulo, which he provided for between 1886 and 1889.
As was the custom at the time, he married his cousin Francisca de Azevedo de Barros and, like a true patriarch, was the father of fourteen children. He died in São Paulo on March 12, 1889 and did not have the opportunity to witness the advent of the Republic, nor to lament the problems it brought to Brazil.
*José Renato Nalini is dean of the Uniregistral, postgraduate professor at Uninove and general secretary of the Academia Paulista de Letras
Source: Terra
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