Favela War - ADPF 635: The Supreme Court Intervenes
In November 2019, the Brazilian Socialist Party filed a landmark legal challenge known as ADPF 635, or the "ADPF das Favelas," before Brazil's Supreme Federal Court. The case, conceived by constitutional law scholar Daniel Sarmento and drafted by attorney João Gabriel Madeira Pontes, sought to address what it described as the "excessive and growing police lethality" in Rio de Janeiro, directed disproportionately against Black and poor populations in favelas. The legal action cited the relationship between structural racism and police lethality, arguing that the state of Rio de Janeiro's public security policies constituted serious violations of fundamental constitutional rights. The case was supported by an extraordinary coalition of favela collectives, the Rio de Janeiro State Public Defender's Office, the Unified Black Movement, and human rights organizations including Conectas, Justiça Global, and ISER, who filed extensive briefs documenting the pattern of unconstitutional violence.
The case gained national prominence in June 2020 when Supreme Court Justice Edson Fachin issued an emergency temporary order suspending police operations in Rio's favelas during the COVID-19 pandemic except in "absolutely exceptional circumstances" that must be justified in writing to the Public Defender's Office. The order came after a series of particularly deadly operations during pandemic lockdowns, including thirteen killed in Complexo do Alemão, the death of fourteen-year-old João Pedro Mattos Pinto inside his aunt's home while surrounded by five other adolescents, and the killing of nineteen-year-old student Rodrigo Cerqueira during a COVID-19 emergency food relief distribution in Morro da Providência. Fachin's order, upheld by seven other justices, represented a historic acknowledgment that police action in Rio communities represented a threat rather than a safeguard to residents' rights. The restriction on operations during the pandemic achieved remarkable results: police killings dropped from twelve hundred in 2020 to eight hundred and seventy-one in 2023, and overall shootings fell from over seven thousand in 2019 to under three thousand in 2023.
The full ADPF 635 case continued to work its way through the court over subsequent years, with Justice Fachin presenting a comprehensive opinion in February 2025 declaring that Brazil faced an "unconstitutional state of affairs" in its public security policy. The case examined structural issues including the historic roots of Brazilian police forces in protecting slaveholding elites during the nineteenth century, the racist logic that treats some lives as less valuable than others, the systemic failure to investigate police killings, the lack of oversight and accountability mechanisms, and the absence of basic governance structures like planning protocols and performance evaluation. Researchers testified that most police killings occurred during preplanned operations rather than reactive confrontations, that raids often generated more violence than they prevented, and that there was a suspicious correlation between police raids in certain areas and subsequent occupation by militias, suggesting intentional use of state violence to facilitate militia expansion.
In April 2025, the Supreme Court issued a rare per curiam unanimous decision in ADPF 635, with all justices agreeing to a common statement affirming their commitment to human rights and public security for all people including those living in poor communities and favelas. The court partially approved the state's public security plan but required several additions including strategies for reoccupying territories dominated by criminal groups with sustained police presence accompanied by access to education, health care, and social services. New transparency and accountability measures included mandatory body cameras in non-investigative operations, public reporting of police lethality data, expedited autopsies, and requirements that ambulances be present during planned raids involving risk of armed conflict. However, the court rejected some proposals including suspending helicopter use, requiring disclosure of tactical protocols, and imposing bans on operations near schools and hospitals. Governor Cláudio Castro praised the decision, particularly the lifting of helicopter restrictions, stating that it removed barriers to security forces in fighting crime, while critics argued the court had not gone far enough to prevent future massacres.
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