LEGAL EDUCATION FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF MEDIATION: A DIMENSION OF ACCESS TO SUBSTANTIAL JUSTICE
Legal education; Access to justice; Adequate conflict management; Emancipatory and responsible mediation.
The general aim of this dissertation is to demonstrate the extent to which legal education can represent a dimension of access to substantial justice, from the perspective of emancipatory and responsible mediation. To this end, bibliographical and documentary research was carried out, using the indirect documentation technique, and the five best law courses were chosen for the research, with a representation from each Brazilian region, according to the Folha 2023 University Ranking. The following universities were chosen: USP, UFGRS, UnB, UFPE and UFPA. The research sources involved books, periodicals and academic papers, as well as university documents such as pedagogical projects, curricula and course syllabuses related to the research topic. It was essential to consider the approach of these documents since they indicate the objectives of the course, the methodological strategies and the content covered. The results showed that legal education is a powerful means of access to justice. Especially when guided by the proper management of conflicts and from the perspective of emancipatory and responsible mediation, since this broadens the understanding of access to justice in a substantial dimension when it includes the active participation of people, legal certainty, conscious decision-making, joint construction of solutions that meet everyone's needs, the exercise of otherness, the appropriation of the ability to manage one's own life and the repercussions of one's attitudes on impersonal and social relationships. However, the training of law professionals in Brazil still does not emphasize the development of skills in mediation and appropriate conflict management. The institutional documents of universities show a subtle occurrence of these themes, which reflects a still meager development. In this way, it is from the foundation of an emancipatory and responsible legal education that it is possible to build a culture of mediation and satisfaction. As a result, the gradual involvement in this practice, based on proper conflict management, generates a tangible sense of access to justice that is co-constructed. This means that the link between legal education and mediation goes through the understanding of social interrelationships, with the main result being access to substantial justice.