“Lay” uses of the law? Popular tribunals in the rural social struggles at the end of civil-military dictatorship (1964-1988) and democratic transition in Brazil (1979-1988)
Social movements, Law, Civil-Military Dictatorship
People's tribunals are trials not linked to state jurisdiction and dedicated to crimes not recognized or unsatisfactorily treated by the justice system. They are carried out by social movements using the ritual of judgment to make denunciations, identify those responsible and announce their positions on disputed issues. The present research focuses on the popular courts carried out by rural social movements during the end of the civil-military dictatorship in Brazil: Land Tribunals and Nacional Tribunal of Latifundium Crimes. The theoretical framework is the sociology of Law and political sociology. People's tribunals are taken as a point of view to discuss the uses of Law in the repertoire of collective actions, around the hypothesis that the forms of political mobilization of Law by social movements throughout the democratic transition are closely related to the uses triggered during the Civil-Military Dictatorship (1964-1988). Thus, this is a qualitative research based on historical documentation.