Justice Joaquim Barbosa
Justice Joaquim Barbosa has dedicated his career to public service, the law, and education. Justice Barbosa served as a public servant since age 19. In 1984 he started his career as a federal prosecutor. In 2003 he was named as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, the first Afro-Brazilian to hold that position. In 2012 he became Brazil’s Chief Justice.
In addition to his duties on the bench, Justice Barbosa spent more than seventeen years as a part-time law professor at Rio de Janeiro State University teaching students so that they might follow in his footsteps.
In 1999, Justice Barbosa traveled to the United States on the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) and built a network in the United States that he would utilize in the decades to come. Justice Barbosa was nominated by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2013 and symbolized the promise of a new Brazil committed to multiculturalism and equality. As a jurist he presided over the country’s largest political-corruption trial. Now retired from public service, Justice Barbosa continues his work as a legal consultant.
Justice Joaquim Barbosa, hailed by one Brazilian newsweekly as “the poor boy who changed Brazil,” continues to be a disseminator of knowledge and learning.
Content edited by Sallie Bestul, Regina Navarro-Gomez, and Jenna Williams
