A verdade no processo penal: (im)possibilidades?

Abstract

This paper searches for the ‘truth’ in the Brazilian Criminal Procedural Code; moreover, it is seen as a guarantee of the accused. Furthermore, the criminal procedure code seeks the truth at the time of a fact´s reconstruction. In addition, it characterizes a crime, and with it, there is a guarantee of a fair decision for the accused. Thus, this paper discusses the possibility or impossibility of an existing truth, which is this research´s primary focus. Nevertheless, true knowledge is a correspondence between procedural language and events that happened. Using Alexander Light’s theory, this paper presents the following hypothesis: it is not philosophically suitable to believe adequately that there is true propositional knowledge. By means of the deductive method, this paper´s first chapter is dedicated to presenting the concept of ‘criminal procedural truth’, which is the Brazilian criminal procedure code´s greatest pursuit. Sequentially, in the second chapter, this study deconstructs the idea that truth – as a mirror of reality – is the same truth of the criminal process. Therefore, if this theory is correct, one cannot admit the existence of true criminal procedure (formal or material) but only of a justified criminal procedural knowledge.