The National Council of Justice (CNJ) approved on Tuesday (11) a decision to increase the minimum racial quota in public judicial competitions from 20% to 30%. The new rule also includes indigenous peoples and quilombolas among the beneficiaries and the agency’s internal rules are consistent with Law No. 15142/2025, which redefined the quota policy in the federal public service.
This procedure will apply to competitions containing two or more vacant positions. In addition to the enlargement, the resolution establishes a mandatory identification procedure and specific criteria for confirming self-declaration for indigenous people and quilombola.
The text specifies that 25% of vacancies will be reserved for black and colored people, 3% for indigenous people and 2% for quilombola, for a total reservation of 30%. There is also the possibility of issuing specific notifications to distribute up to 10% of vacancies between indigenous people and quilombola in different ways, respecting at least 20% for black and colored people. The information was shared by CNJ’s Bound. The standard law was not yet available at the time of publication of this text.
The rule must stipulate redistribution rules: if there are not enough candidates in one group, the vacant positions are successively returned to the other groups – first among indigenous people and quilombola, then to black and brown people, and finally, to the broad competition.
the Bound It showed in 2023 that even then, only two out of every five vacancies reserved for blacks in statewide judicial contests had been filled. In the Federal Court, the number of judges approved for each quota did not exist.
Sociologist Márcio José de Macedo, professor and diversity coordinator at FGV EAESP, sees the change as positive, but it should not alone change the composition of the judiciary.
“In general, just having a quota policy does not guarantee its success,” he says. Competition for the judiciary is high, and preparing for exams has high costs, limiting access for black, indigenous and quilombola populations, according to the professor.
“The world of the judiciary is still quite homogeneous in terms of class, race and gender origins. The majority of judges, prosecutors and judges are made up of white men from the middle and upper classes of Brazilian society,” he says.
For Macedo, the effect of this is that many candidates from historically marginalized groups do not intuitively consider this career possible and exclude themselves from competitions even with the offer of places.
He states that reservation of places is necessary, but it only works with institutional engagement in identifying and overcoming structural inequalities.
Counselor of the National Council of Public Prosecutions (CNMP), Karen Luiz de Souza, who was previously an associate judge of the Presidency of the National Council of Justice, presented a similar proposal on Tuesday, to increase the minimum reserve in public ministry competitions to 30% – 25% for blacks (black and brown), 3% for indigenous people, and 2% for quilombola.
“We hope to include more indigenous people and quilombola people and to clarify the project of the Public Prosecutor’s Office that we intend to adopt: pluralism, diversity and a mirror of society,” he says.
In addition to registration, competitions include travel and accommodation for candidates during the selection process. These expenses, he says, often make it impossible for those who come from less favorable social contexts to participate. Therefore, scholarship programs are necessary so that these candidates can compete on equal terms.
“There is too much distance between the institution and the real state,” he says.
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