Brasília, 11/7/2003 (Agência Brasil - ABr) - Once again, vice president Jose Alencar has taken advantage of a public event, in this case the inauguration of the new chief justice of a federal court, to criticize the country's interest rates. According to Alencar, there has never been such a transfer of wealth into the financial system. He declared that the only way the country will be able to grow is if there are jobs to offer. "We must bring interest rates down in order to create jobs," he declared.

As for recent misunderstandings between the Executive and Judicial branches, Alencar considered them unimportant, saying: "The different branches of government are independent, autonomous and in tune with the country's most elevated objectives. We respect the other branches."

Meanwhile, the new chief justice of the Superior Labor Court, Francisco Fausto, declared that he is in favor of a judicial branch reform, but added that it could not be allowed to denigrate the image of the country's judges. Fausto cited the example of a recent police operation ("Anaconda") which has brought accusations of corruption against several federal judges in São Paulo.

Fausto said he was opposed to the idea of external control of the Judiciary because there was no such control over other branches of government. He also said that any reform had to do more than just alter structures; there had to be changes in the way court cases are dealt with to make them get to resolution faster, he said. Fausto pointed out that the Brazilian Procedural Code of 1937 created a wide range of judicial appeal possibilities, which are used indiscriminately by lawyers. That, he said, could be changed in order to speed up the judicial process. (AB)