The National Council of Justice (CNJ) announced new rules for counting procedural deadlines. As of May 16, 2025, deadlines will be counted from the publication date in the National Electronic Court Gazette (DJEN) or the Electronic Court Gazette (DJE), depending on the act type to be performed.

This change directly impacts the routine of law firms, legal departments, and companies that use outsourced services to control deadlines. The systems that until now operated based on publications in the Electronic Court Gazette will need to be urgently adjusted, at the risk of missing procedural deadlines and the resulting losses.

The new rule arises from CNJ Resolution No. 569/2024, which established the National Electronic Court Gazette (DJEN) as the official channel for publishing procedural acts when personal summons are not required. The same regulation also establishes that services of process by electronic means and procedural communications that require personal inspection, notice, or summons of the party or third parties will be made through the Electronic Court Gazette (DJE).

Initially scheduled to come into effect in March 2025, the change was postponed to 05/16/2025, after entities’ manifestations, such as the Federal Council of the Brazilian Bar Association (OAB), which warned of the need for more time for adaptation by courts, lawyers, and operators of the justice system.

With the change, the CNJ seeks to create a unified national environment for procedural communications, replacing the former electronic gazettes, which operated in a decentralized manner for each court. This unification eases integration with electronic petitioning and procedural consultation systems but requires that legal professionals be fully aligned with the new publication system.

Although it may seem simply like an operational change, the new system has material practical effects. The main one, in the case of communications not requiring personal summons (made via DJEN), is the end of the so-called “automatic opening” of the period after 10 days of publication, as provided for in Article 5, paragraph 3, of Law 11,419/2006. From now on, the deadline starts counting from the publication in the DJEN.

In the case of communications that require personal summons, made via Electronic Court Gazette (DJE), the rules are different, depending on the act type (service of process or other procedural communication) and whether the recipient is a public or private entity.

In services of process, for legal entities under public law, if there is no register of notice within the period of 10 calendar days, the system will consider it implicit notice and will trigger the start of the period. If, on the other hand, there is knowledge of the service of process within the 10-day period, the deadline for response begins to run on the fifth business day following confirmation.

For legal entities under private law, if there is no express knowledge of the service of process within three business days, the communication will expire and the party will be served with process by another means. In the case of procedural communications other than the service of process, if there is no notice within ten calendar days from the date of sending the procedural communication to the Electronic Court Gazette (DJE), this will be automatically considered to have been carried out on the date of the end of this period.

Do not wait until a deadline is missed to see the impact of the change. Adapt your workflows or count on a partner who is already ready for this new reality.