ABSTRACT
This study aimed to understand the role of the Public Prosecutor’s Office of the State of Rio Grande do Norte in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic between March and September 2020. Therefore, a survey of Parquet activities was carried out based on the portal of MPRN news, considering, in the analysis, the period of operation;the classification of the measure;the theme;the territorial cut of the performance;involved actors and the stage of public policy of each measure analyzed. Then, the activities of the MPRN were classified based on the typologies pointed out by Goulart;Coelho and Kozicki;Silva and Da Ros. The results obtained evidenced, on the one hand, the preference for dialogue regarding public policies and extrajudicial action in a context of sanitary crisis and, on the other, the existence of internal conflicts that explained the discretion that characterizes the performance of the Public Ministry in the Brazil. It is noteworthy that the data refer to the performance reported by the institution itself, not covering the entire effort made by the MPRN during the research period. © 2021 Centro Universitario de Brasilia. All rights reserved.