OLIVEIRA. B. S.; http://lattes.cnpq.br/9501517374738639; OLIVEIRA, Bianca Silveira de.
Résumé:
The Brazilian Judiciary Power, especially regarding to criminal justice, has a large number
of pending proceedings, most of them unnecessary, once it becomes more unlikely to the
State the application of the corresponding penalty. Facing these data, judges, prosecutors
and lawyers began to use the creativity, as well as all the legal knowledge they owned, willing
to find the faster way to resolve the issues discussed into judgment, arising from
thisthe Institute of virtual limitation. This new type of limitation, despite having no expressed
legal provision, it has been adopted by many Law operators,corresponding to one of the
species of the limitation of punitive claim, in which the judge, or other Law
operator, simulates the most severe possiblepenalty applied for the defendant if it
were condemned in the end of the criminal process and, being that applicable, they perceive in
advance the exhaustion of the limitation period at the time of the proposal of the criminal
action, or even during its course. So, the limitation period in perspective is based especially
on the absence of one of the conditions of action, which it is the interest of
acting, once if absent the possibility of recognizing andapplication of
the pleaded right, namely, the criminal penalty, and if verified the impossibility of being
hit the purposes of the condemnation through the jurisdictional provision used, there is no
possibility of interest of acting. According to this understanding, intending to demonstrate the
nature and the admissibility of the aforementioned institute by the Brazilian Courts, were
used, as a method of procedure, the deductive approach and historical comparison methods,
and the theoretical as a research technique, which was made through bibliographic research,
by the using of books, laws, jurisprudence, as well as studies available on electronic media,
supporting the point of the object in discussion. This way, in the end of the research, it was
found that – although still heavily criticized by several courts, including Supremo Tribunal
Federal and Superior Tribunal de Justiça -, the virtual limitation is an advancement from the
doctrine and jurisprudence, since it’s been seeking the reduction of the large amount of
processes doomed to failure, replacing them with cases that deserve more attention and
urgency, making it possible to them to have a fair trial, just the way the law predicted it must
be. Thus, even wrongly opposed by the highest Brazilian judicial courts, the virtual limitation
is feasible and represents a great step to reach the procedural celerity, making it not just a
legal text, but a reality in Brazilian criminal process.