The object of desire in judicial ritual: between efficient speech and due process

Abstract

In 2016, two lawyers sued before the Constitutional Court the law that reformed the labor judicial process, replacing the traditional written forms by new oral practices. They considered that this reform imposed “a strict time limitation” on different stages of the process, violating fundamental rights such as due process and to access the administration of justice. Although the Court decided to declare it constitutional, the criticisms by the judges and lawyers of the new procedural dynamics continue. In this article I analyze the problem resignifying the judicial process to study it, more than the normative technical scheme, as a ceremonial ritual that expresses the relevant features of the legal culture that conceives it and that practices it. For this, I perform a comparative analysis of the symbols that are protected and appreciated in both procedural schemes (written and oral) in light of the operationalization of Totem, Freudian psychoanalysis concept, carried out by the jurist Daniel Marrani. From these referents, I analyze the interviews and data obtained in the field to finally expose how the symbols of both cultures are syncretized in the daily practices and beliefs of judges and lawyers, giving rise to diverse perspectives of the fundamental aspects of the process and, therefore, to various judicial rituals within the Palace of Justice itself.