A History of the Act of Judging: Formalities and Informalities in the Judges of Barra Mansa, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1853–1950

It is traditionally expected that judges are a part of the State and that their decisions follow the law. One of the most relevant responsibilities of a judge is the act of deciding. This study aims to investigate whether the judges of Barra Mansa, an important city in the interior of the State of Rio de Janeiro, followed the State's laws when making their decisions or used a different approach. I intend to understand whether the judges followed legal formalities, such as describing the law in the case and citing decisions from other courts in the city's daily life. The idea is to compare the decisions and see how and in what way they deviated from what was prescribed in the law. This can show scholars that the judges' attitudes could be much more informal, direct, and contrary to the formalities that are usually used to describe the act of judging. Based on a preliminary investigation of all judicial decisions made in the city between 1893 and 1950, it appears that the judges in Barra Mansa rarely used the formalities of the law in their decision-making process. Despite being an official act of the State, their judgments were often not in accordance with the formalities of the law and seemed to be much more of an “informal” and “objective action.”