Criminal Non-Prosecution Agreement as a political-criminal instrument: possibilities, binding jurisprudential reconfigurations, and the new directions of the Brazilian criminal procedure

Abstract

The paper, based on a bibliographic and hermeneutic review with a deductive approach, presents the configuration of the Non-Prosecution Agreement (ANPP) as a political-criminal instrument, the foundations of which need to be understood. Against the backdrop of the discussion of these foundations as binding by the Supreme Federal Court (STF), the first part advocates for the maximum scope and retroactivity of the ANPP as a mixed norm, seeking to describe the state of the discussion and the bases of the debate in jurisprudence. In a second moment, it proposes that the concept of penal insignificance, present in the legal discipline of the ANPP, should gain prominence as a critical function linked to the political-criminal analysis of jurisdictional action. In the third section, the text asserts the urgency of a justification for filtering the necessity or not of penal incidence and its convenience, based on perspectives on what may constitute just cause for criminal action. In the concluding remarks, the paper revisits the potential role of ANPP as an instrument that could inaugurate a democratic renewal in the legal system, given its ability to pave the way for a strategic discussion regarding the necessity or not of state-punitive action.