Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/299199 
Year of Publication: 
2024
Series/Report no.: 
Texto para Discussão No. 2992
Publisher: 
Instituto de Pesquisa Econômica Aplicada (IPEA), Brasília
Abstract (Translated): 
The 2015 Civil Code of Procedure (Law 13.105) entailed extensive changes in the system of civil appeals in Brazil but, after more than seven years of its enactment, there hasn't been any empirical assessment regarding the impacts of the procedural reform on the propensity to appeal in civil proceedings. This article proposes to evaluate the impact of the new procedural system on the propensity to appeal in civil cases, based on a differences-in-differences framework. In addition to analyzing the trajectory of appeal rates for the main appeal classes in civil actions - civil appeals and small claims appeals, motions for clarification and interlocutory appeals - the research also analyzes other aspects, such as case duration and outcome of the judgment of appeals . The main premise of the 2015 Civil Code of Procedure was the improvement of jurisdictional provision - especially from the point of view of efficiency and predictability. The primary source of data for the research is the Court of Justice of the State of São Paulo, based on the processing of information from the electronic journal of justice, the case monitoring platform (website) and a database on first-degree judgments. The sample consists of 250 thousand cases sentenced between 2014 and 2019, in the civil, district courts of the first degree and in the small claims courts. The identification strategy relies on the fact that the small claims courts are subject to an independent procedural system - established by a specific Law, apart from the Brazilian civil code of procedure. Therefore, we consider the appeal rates for small claims procedures as the counterfactual trajectory for the rate of appeals in civil courts, in the absence of the procedural reform enacted with the new Civil Procedure Code of 2015 (Law 13.105). The results point to large-magnitude increases in the rate of appeals for civil appeals and even larger in motions for clarification, and a substantial reduction in the rate of appeals for interlocutory appeals. A series of alternative specifications of the model confirms the absence of effects: by case value, by type of potential appellant (individuals or firms) or by specific procedural matters. Results indicate that the mechanisms established to reduce the propensity to appeal did not prove to be effective in the most important type of review namely, civil appeal. For the other classes, the results confirm that easing the admissibility requirements of motions for clarification possibly caused a small increase in the rate of use of the resource. Likewise, a small reduction in the incidence of interlocutory appeals was due to restrictions of the admissibility requirements of the appeal. Overall, the empirical evidence suggests that the new civil code of procedures of 2015 did not successfully accomplish two of its main goals, which were to increase efficiency and curb appeals in civil cases.
Subjects: 
civil appeals
appellate rates
civil code of procedure
procedural reform
differences-in-differences
judicial efficiency
legal uncertainty
JEL: 
K40
K41
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by Logo
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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