The place, the sense and the legal nature of the specialized hearing and special testimony

the hearings of children and adolescents in the criminal process

Abstract

The hearing of minors victim or testimony of violence has a diverse historiography in the brazilian criminal procedure, but the scarcity of studies entails some theoretical and practical difficulties. As general objective, it seeks to offer the reader a propaedeutic study with the main similarities and differences between the forensic psychological assessment, the special testimony and the specialized hearing; and, as specific objective, it seeks to demonstrate the error of use the last of them for investigative and evidentiary purposes. This article is justified as attempt to fill a doctrinal gap on such a relevant topic. Through the methodology of bibliographic review, a serie of pratical problems rarely discussed in doctrine about the use of forensic psychological assessment, special testimony and specialized hearing in cases of violence against children and adolescents are faced. The main problem is knowing whether specialized hearing could be used for criminal investigation or accountability purposes and to collect information in order to support a notitia criminis. For the reasons explained below, the negative hypothesis (conclusion) is reached for the first one (to investigate ou to hold accountable criminally) and the negative hypothesis (conclusion) is reached for the second one (to iniciate or to open an investigation).