A oportunização da prova testemunhal da atividade rural para a concessão de benefício no âmbito da previdência social

The goal of this article is to analyze the changes resulting from the latest changes in social security legislation, with specific reference to rural workers. Although the so-called Pension Reform, the Constitutional Emendment 103/2019, did not change the criteria for granting the social security benefits to this workers, the Provisional Measure 871, converted into Law 13.846/19, later regulated by Official Notice n. 46, of September 13, 2019, ended up fulfilling this role. Thus new instruments were created in order to prove agricultural work whithin the administrative and judicial scopes, such as future registration of the special rural beneficiary and the self-declaration. In addition to addressing the changes in the evidentiary instruction, this text seeks to analyze whether these rules have removed, albeit to some extent, the testimonial evidence from the administrative and judicial procedures. Such analysis will be based on the study of procedural law, considering the principles that rule civil cases in Brazil, especially with regard to the probative nature of social security processes. The method will be the inductive-deductive one, based in the doctrine of fundamental rights.