Lester: Isolation is often an enemy of justice – and in the wild far North of Brazil, it’s no different. The edges of the giant Amazon River have long been ruled by the law of the jungle, but now the law has a boat and they’re heading into the jungle. It’s a revolution for Brazilian justice in the wild. A small group of Judges and Prosecutors has traded the bricks and mortar of their legal system for a diesel engine, a skipper and a cook, leaving their courtrooms to force back the frontier of law and order. Here on the Amazon, it’s rarely been practical for villagers to ‘go to court’ so now days the court goes to the villagers. Afonso Gomes Guimarães is a government prosecutor on his first ‘Justice Boat’ journey.

Afonso: The purpose of the justice boat is to take the possibility of resolving problems that need a judge, an attorney or a public prosecutor, to far away communities distant from the large cities.

Lester: Two and a half thousand kilometres North of Brazil’s big cities known for their violence, the Justice Boat moors near the tiny township of Vila Macedonia… and at once armed officers head out to hunt one accused …as Afonso deals with a jungle boundary dispute. Those who live here are isolated way beyond the one hundred and eighty kilometres to Macapa, the nearest town with a courthouse. There are no roads - no airstrips. Life is intimately linked to the river.

Afonso: If he doesn’t build anything here, it won’t be a problem.

Lester: Local Council President José Mauricio Marques plans to build Vila Macedonia a new walkway through property this couple has fenced into their backyard.

Maria: It’s private property and he can’t evict us like that.

José: A former president of the local association gave them a piece of land so they could build a place to raise hens. But now they’ve trespassed beyond the measurements of their land.

Lester: A world away from the murders and kidnappings of Rio and Sao Paulo, the law here is focussed on where they built the hen house. Judges and prosecutors inspect situations first hand, then take the parties back to the boat, and deliver justice.

Alfonso: We have to decide whether he’s right or the community is. As you can see, people here don’t talk. They don’t have the initiative to fight for their rights. Sometimes they don’t even know their rights.

Lester: On the equator, the mouth of the Amazon. One fifth of all fresh water draining into the world’s oceans flows out of the biggest river system and rainforest on Earth, through here, and into the Atlantic. Straddling the mouth, the Bailique Islands --home to six thousand people.

Mario: The first thing we have to keep in mind is to reduce the geographic distance between justice and these people. And not only this geographic distance but also the cultural distance.

Lester: Mario Cezar Kaskelis is one of a dozen or so judges who take turns in leading the Amazon Justice Boat. He’s done the weeklong Bailique journey about twenty times and watched the people he visits change with each trip.

Mario: People’s attitudes have changed. These days they wait when they have a conflict, as for instance, with all the land possession cases. People don’t try to solve their problems by using violence or weapons.

Lester: But the boat has come to be much more than a settler of bush disputes. In Vila Macedonia, Pastor Joares and his wife Elzienilde have learned the unthinkable.
The paperwork from their wedding ten years ago was not legal. Technically, they’ve never been married. Judge Mario marries them in front of their nine-year-old daughter.

Elzienilde: I thank God for the your support, your work and your performance. We are very grateful to you all because it is a wonderful job.

Joares: The biggest problem of the Brazilian Justice is the time taken to solve problems. The boat is faster. We have our certificate in hand. This would take months in Macapa, if we could get it at all.

Lester: Over six years, the judges and prosecutors have reshaped The Justice Boat. They saw the need for doctors, so brought them along.

Mario: We’ve brought social workers, people from the land registry and health professionals. We have shortened the distance in every way. As dusk, the tide heads out and the Justice Boat slumps in the mud. Tough enough for cook Adiel Pinheiro Gaspar that he works in a broom cupboard sized kitchen. Tonight it’s on a slope – better he says than a rough sea, and unlikely to disturb to taste of his specialties.

Lester: What are your best dishes, Adiel?

Adiel: A la carte or Chinese food.

Lester: He cooks with bottled water, washes the dishes in the Amazon and makes a wonderful meal - all in the glow of the Justice boat.

Adiel: We hear from everyone that this is very good. They’ve never had the opportunity to have an ID card or get near a judge without going to the capital. It’s very good - good and gratifying.

Lester: The Judge has packed away his bench. Thirty or so hammocks are slung across the courtroom, turned dining room, turned bedroom, … and the Brisa do Mar – or Breeze From The Sea – putters down the Amazon. Among the forty crammed on board, those who don’t have a hammock will curl up on the deck. All will wake to a new village.

Valmir: I felt a shock from behind -- then I fainted and woke up half an hour later.

Lester: A snake has bitten Valmir Lobato Calandrino. He seems OK for now, but over the coming hours, the twenty one year old faces a fight for his life.

Valmir: I managed to drag myself to my horse, reached my canoe and rowed home.

Lester: After his two-hour trek to help, he reckons he’s lucky. The Justice Boat is in town. But nurse Nilza Oliveira is angry. All she can do is call a river ambulance, because Health authorities refused to give the justice boat any anti-venom.

Nilza: Everyone is in danger of being bitten by a snake. Let’s wait and hope that the person who received our call is bringing the medication, so he can go to Macapa treated.

Lester: Twelve hours after the call for help, Macapa’s ambulance arrives – without the anti-venom. Now shaken and sickly, Valmir will have to hang on for another half-day as he makes the return journey to hospital. This case has absolutely convinced me as a concrete example something has got to be done now. The case has angered Afonso so much, he’s taking the State government to court on behalf of the villagers.

Alfonso: I can force the State to improve the conditions, to provide basic transportation, to send a doctor every fortnight, to send medication. It is possible.

Lester: For now, the Bailique people have to make do with the boat’s fleeting visits. Here, a medical team heads to help an old woman in a tiny community of twenty-three people from one family. Ana Rodriguez Dias is one hundred and five, dying and according to her son, beyond a boat trip to Macapa.

Getulio: In the state that she is in, she wouldn’t make it.

Lester: Getulio Rodrigues lost a five-year-old son for lack of medical attention. If only the Justice Boat had been here then.

Getulio: I'm pleased to have them visiting my mother while she’s so sick..

Lester: Dusk ends another day in another village, and those aboard the Briza do Mar reflect on the people they’ve helped and those they couldn’t.

Nilza: This is my biggest frustration because whoever has money goes to Macapa. Those who haven’t stay here without help - without anything. So much more could be done, but this giant country – larger than Australia with ten times the people – is tackling its distance. When Judge Mario is not on the Justice Boat, he spends three days a week on a Justice Bus.

Mario: I feel a lot more useful working in an area of itinerant justice. And the bus provides the same services as the boat does.I feel more useful doing this job now.

Lester: Aand for the little health and law a boat can bring every two months, the people of the Bailique Islands are grateful. They expected much less.