CNJ Updates Judicial Recovery Process of Rural Producers

The grant was born with a legal goal: to compare the judicial process to the judicial process

The judicial relief of rural producers and the constitutional limits of the ordinary powers of the CNJ

April 9, 2026, 7:01 am.

Regulation No. 216/2026 of the Office of the National Judicial Inspectorate was born with the legal intention of standardizing judicial recovery and judicial actions in the bankruptcy procedure, especially for local manufacturers in areas where there are no specialized courts. The problem is not in the expressed intention. It is in the chosen method and above all in the intention of the legislation. This law is an administrative and corrective guide.Not limited to the field, advancing matters reserved to the law, readjusting the ability to accept collection claims, changing the debt obedience regime, interfering with collateral discipline, creating a general presumption of coercive intervention, even establishing coercive intervention by the State Prosecutor's Office. Administrators without legal provisions. There is no peripheral redundancy.This is an attempt to create a true "parallel local LREF" by regulation.

The Constitution gave the CNJ, still only the Department of Home Affairs, the power to legislate on procedural and substantive matters.Article 103-B, clause 4 of the Constitution is clear in giving the Council control over the administrative and financial activities of the judiciary and control over the execution of the functional tasks of the judiciary.In the same vein, the case law of the STF reiterated that the authority of the CNJ is limited to the administrative scope and its authority is not to interfere with the content of the jurisdiction or to replace the legislature in the formation of the process.The CNJ can organize, supervise, propose and correct administrative distortions.What it cannot do is to rewrite the law 11,101/2005 under the label of guidance.

Addiction, in fact, begins at the beginning of action.The CNJ Bylaws make a clear distinction between plenary and internal affairs space.Issuance of regulatory acts and editing of regulatory acts within its entire competence;The Inspectorate is tasked with issuing regulations on matters relating to the competence of the National Audit Office of Justice and other regulatory acts and, in addition, proposing to the general public the publication of wider regulatory laws.This side is crucial.It is one thing for the internal department to improve disciplinary remedial procedures, administrative flows and court services.Another, very different, is the establishment of new rules at the national level regarding initial application requirements, reasons for rejection, classification of credits and the scope of guarantees of judicial recovery of rural producers.In this regard, provision 216 is already provided organically.

It is important to be precise: not all provisions deserve the same criticism. There are relevant directives that systematize existing legal orders, such as the special rehabilitation program and part of the documentation system.Serious criticism must be well-founded to achieve accuracy and precision when presented technically.

Conflict with legality

Beyond the constitutional mission granted to the CNJ, the provision comes into direct conflict with legality.The first prohibition against legality appears in the initial petition and early discovery discipline.Only Article 8 obliges the rural producer to present a report on the operating status of the activity, in addition to specific statements on current and future production, the activity, the opportunity to harvest and animal production guarantees.Next, Article 10, §3º, requires that the pre-certification take into account the "harvest perspective" and the "feasibility of continuing the productive activity".

Aqui o CNJ cruza uma linha sensível: a LREF, após a reforma de 2020, passou a admitir a constatação prévia, mas vedou expressamente o indeferimento do processamento com base em análise de viabilidade econômica do devedor (artigo 51-A, § 5º); e, quando trata de fraude, fala em indícios contundentes de utilização fraudulenta da recuperação judicial. O provimento, porém, substitui esse desenho legal por outro: estimula exame de viabilidade e, no § 7º do artigo 10, admite indeferimento diante de “eventuais indícios” de fraude e de “desvios de garantia”. Isso não é regulamentar a lei; é alterá-la, exigindo do produtor rural um exercício de futurologia inviável.

The same deviation occurs when the act creates new procedural obligations for the court administrator.Article 12 imposes a specific mandatory section in the monthly reports, authorizes the conclusion of a technical report on the control of the harvest at the expense of the company in the process of recovery, and requires the notification to the court and the prosecutor's office of a possible deviation from the guarantee or the sale of the shipped goods.Once again, this is not a simple good practice suggested by the judge.The text in practice establishes a new mandatory regime with new costs, fees and the operation of the procedure, which Law 11.101/2005 did not establish for the recovery of rural producers, violates the principle of legality.At this point, the CNJ stops organizing the judicial system and begins to form the structure of the recovery process itself.

Protection of Creditors' Rights

Perhaps the most eloquent example of a violation of the legal reserve is Article 13, a single paragraph.There it is stated that "co-obligations provided for the benefit of third parties" are not subject to the effects of judicial enforcement.The problem is simple: LREF did not create this abstract category of non-submission.On the contrary, its article 49 provides for the presentation of loans existing at the date of the application, while § 1 preserves the rights of creditors against co-borrowers, guarantors and those who are forced to return.Preservation of the creditor's right against third parties is not the same as authorizing the CNJ to invent a new hypothesis of exclusion from the recovery regime through the provision.The administrative text mixes the categories of the law and, as a result, creates uncertainty exactly where there should be maximum predictability: in the universe of specialized and non-specialized credits.

There is more.The only clause in Article 15 seeks to define, for the purposes of Article I, what is meant by "acts of executive authority", including "all legislative initiatives" initiated or enacted by the executive, such as general laws, supplementary laws, temporary measures and delegated laws.Here the issue goes beyond remedial legislation and goes to the heart of the separation of powers.Through administrative legislation, a general concept of normative origin and legislative action by the executive to influence judicial remedial measures.The created CNJ is not dependent on internal affairs.When an administrative agency begins to redefine the scope of constitutional and legislative categories, the system ceases to function according to law and begins to function by a creative infralegal act.

There is another delicate point in Article 16.§ 1 in itself is not the best goal, because the Civil Code already provides that agricultural withholding for the upcoming harvest extends to the immediate next harvest if the first one is untenable or insufficient.But § 2 goes further and allows for the immediate, automatic and “court-independent” replacement of the encumbered crop with the next crop, preserving the guarantee for LREF purposes.Bankruptcy law, in any case involving the sale of real estate subject to a real guarantee, makes the cancellation or replacement of the guarantee subject to the unconditional consent of the title lender.Thus, this provision not only resembles the civil lien rule;this creates an automatic regulatory bridge in judicial recovery that was not built by LREF.This is where unjustified innovation becomes apparent.

Intervention of the deputy as legal inspector

Equally serious is Article 19, which provides for the intervention of the Public Prosecution, as a legal supervisor, in judicial recovery, extrajudicial recovery and bankruptcy procedures involving rural producers, except that its notification is required before the approval of the scheme.The KPP provides that the deputy, as supervisor of the legal system, intervenes in the cases provided by the law or the constitution and in certain cases of public or social interest, disability and collective ownership disputes.With the provision of the CNJ, the minister cannot create a new general and mandatory presumption of intervention, which was also vetoed by the legislator when the law 11,101/2005 was approved with the presidential veto in article 4 of the LREF.

Section 20 of the Act also goes far in providing for the “removal” of the judicial executive at any time on the initiative of the judge.or at the request of the party or creditorThe problem isn't just the vocabulary.Law No. 11,101/2005 does not establish that erasure is an independent category.This is valid only on the assumption of replacement and dismissal.By creating their own regimeFor specific reasons and resultsThe provision therefore substantially changes the legal order.and enact new laws for things that are under legal reserve.The practical consequences are obvious: Administrative law establishes precedent procedures that are not provided for by special laws and procedural laws.

Essentially, what Decision 216/2026 highlights is a recurring institutional temptation: to replace the work of the legislator with a logic of efficiency.However, efficiency is not a virtue without constitutional ability;This is an aberration.The National Justice Council provides an essential service as it corrects administrative excesses, prepares data, improves flow, increases transparency and structurally reorganizes the judiciary.But when it proceeds to create requirements not provided for by law, expand the grounds for refusal, redefine the destination of appropriations, and establish unprecedented grounds for dismissing judicial officers and modeling the recovery process through unilateral action on the part of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, it ceases to be a supervisory body and gets dangerously close to an administrative project that was not envisaged by the Constitution.

Defense of separation of powers

Therefore, the criticism of Section 216 is not a corporate response, nor a resistance to modernization.It is a rudimentary defense of legality, separation of powers, and legal certainty.Farmers, creditors, court administrators and judges must decide under established law, not under a normative blanket created outside of legislative due process.Judicial recovery already entails intensive litigation and huge coordination costs.What it does not support is that the amendment turns the exception into the rule and provides for the provision to fulfill the role that the Constitution has reserved for the National Congress.

In addition, there is a fact that cannot be ignored: Regulation 216/2026 was developed by the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock and the CNJ, at a meeting between then Minister Carlos Favaro and Corregedoria in March 2024, followed by registration recalling the approval of the MAPA created by the Minister of Justice, as well as the letter of supervision of the Minister of Law and the letter of supervision of the sources of STJ cases that, according to the Ministry, were notreviewed by the courts of first instance.In 2026, CNJ, Corregedoria and Mapa entered into Technical Cooperation Agreement no.All these things show a worrying closeness between those who are supposed to support the sector and those who, in the end, have begun to exercise restrictions to limit rural farmers.

This measure not only guides the judges, but also rewrites the law 11 101/2005 on rural producers.By the same action, the Ministry of the Interior enters the legal space, affects the separation of powers and makes the CNJ from the judicial review group an inappropriate representative of the enforcement process.

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