Brazil’s Justice system could be the next Covid-19 victim

Brazil is in its second week of social isolation due to the Covid-19 pandemic, so far recording 62 deaths and almost 2,500 infections. Some states have already put their citizens under quarantine and forecasts for the country’s economic future are bleak. The prospect of recession and widespread bankruptcy has led Brazil’s Justice system to fear a new problem on the horizon: a huge influx of administration pleas from business owners.

Last year, requests for court-supervised reorganization fell 1.5 percent. This year, cases continued to decrease until March, but the Covid-19 pandemic and state-wide lockdowns are likely to cause requests to boom.

This alerted the Justice system, which fears a flood of requests during and after the public health emergency. Judge Daniel Carnio Costa, a specialist in court-supervised reorganizations, explains that the effects of the pandemic on the Brazilian justice system will be comparable to that of the crisis about to hit the country’s health apparatus.

Several cases are set to arrive in a short time, and the system will be unable to serve everyone. “We are going to need bold temporary emergency measures to protect companies because, without them, the consequences...