Maria Berenice Dias (born 1948 in the city of

Santiago Santiago (, ; ), also known as Santiago de Chile, is the capital and largest city of Chile as well as one of the largest cities in the Americas. It is the center of Chile's most densely populated region, the Santiago Metropolitan Region, whose ...

, state of

Rio Grande do Sul Rio Grande do Sul (, , ; "Great River of the South") is a Federative units of Brazil, state in the South Region, Brazil, southern region of Brazil. It is the Federative_units_of_Brazil#List, fifth-most-populous state and the List of Brazilian st ...

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

) is a Brazilian

judge A judge is a person who presides over court proceedings, either alone or as a part of a panel of judges. A judge hears all the witnesses and any other evidence presented by the barristers or solicitors of the case, assesses the credibility an ...

and the first

woman A woman is an adult female human. Prior to adulthood, a female human is referred to as a girl (a female child or adolescent). The plural ''women'' is sometimes used in certain phrases such as "women's rights" to denote female humans regardl ...

to take the bench in her home state of

. Dias obtained her Post Graduate Degree and Master in Civil Proceeding from the

Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul The Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul ( pt, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul, PUCRS) is a private non-profit Catholic university. With campuses in the Brazilian cities of Porto Alegre and Viamão, it is the ...

. Dr. Dias also was the first woman to become a justice of the state highest

Court of Appeals A court of appeals, also called a court of appeal, appellate court, appeal court, court of second instance or second instance court, is any court of law that is empowered to hear an appeal of a trial court or other lower tribunal. In much of ...

. She is the presiding justice over the Seventh Panel of Judges of the state highest

; the quorum of judges assembles in

Porto Alegre Porto Alegre (, , Brazilian ; ) is the capital and largest city of the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul. Its population of 1,488,252 inhabitants (2020) makes it the List of largest cities in Brazil, twelfth most populous city in the country ...

, the state capital. Dr. Dias' own specialty is the area of

family law Family law (also called matrimonial law or the law of domestic relations) is an area of the law that deals with family matters and domestic relations. Overview Subjects that commonly fall under a nation's body of family law include: * Marriage, ...

. She was selected and she accepted the title of

ambassador An ambassador is an official envoy, especially a high-ranking diplomat who represents a state and is usually accredited to another sovereign state or to an international organization as the resident representative of their own government or sov ...

of the First World Outgames in 2006 in

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-most populous city in Canada and List of towns in Quebec, most populous city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian ...

, Quebec, Canada.

Authorship

Dias is also an author, and has created, co-founded or presided over such organizations as the

Brazilian Institute of Family Law The Brazilian Institute of Family Law or IBDFAM (from ''Instituto Brasileiro de Direito de Família'', in Portuguese) is a non-profit civil association founded on October 25, 1997, in the city of Belo Horizonte, state of Minas Gerais, Brazil, duri ...

(''Instituto Brasileiro de Direito de Família/IBDFAM''); the Federation of Women’s Associations (''Federação das Associações Femeninas/FAF''); ''JusMulher'', offering voluntary legal and psychological service to women in need; and the Brazilian Association of Women with Careers in the Justice Field (''Associação Brasileira das Mulheres de Carreira Jurídica/ABMCJ-RS''). One of her most notable publications is ''Homoafetividade - o que diz a Justiça'', a work in which she gathers and comments on judicial decisions by the Brazilian Court of Appeals regarding

civil rights Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life of ...

of same-sex couples. These decisions set legal precedents in Brazil.

External links

Maria Berenice Dias
Personal website (in English, Spanish and Portuguese), accessed on April 25, 2006.
Maria Berenice Dias - Essays translated into English
accessed on September 30, 2006.
State Supreme Court of Appeals/Tribunal de Justiça of the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil
Official website (in Portuguese only), accessed on April 25, 2006. {{DEFAULTSORT:Dias, Maria Berenice People from Santiago, Rio Grande do Sul Brazilian women judges 20th-century Brazilian judges 1948 births Living people Brazilian LGBT rights activists 21st-century Brazilian judges 20th-century women judges 21st-century women judges