On the eve of the thirtieth anniversary of the Constitution, it is urgent to take stock of this reality. The 1988 Constitution structures the welfare state model with a view to eradicating inequalities based, above all, on the strengthening of the social order and the protection of human rights. In this sense the prospective meaning...
30 years after: is democracy in Brazil stable?
Brazilian dictatorial past has brought a pattern of “hyper-presidentialism,“ as a consequence, any abrupt change in people’s attitudes toward the president, as well as any sudden drop in popularity, can lead to a crisis that can put the whole political system in tension. The “winner-take-all“ model of presidentialism, combined with the history of authoritarianism in...
Brazilian Social Constitutionalism 30 years later: why so distant?
The Brazilian Constitution promulgated in 1988 charted a state welfare project aimed at eradicating inequalities based, above all, on the strengthening of the social order and the protection of economic and social rights. It was our first constitutional text to take social economic rights seriously, granting them immediate applicability. However, in social and economic rights...
Strengthening the Brazilian “juristocracy“ in self-interest: the engagement of justices since National Constituent Assembly to the Super Supreme Court thirty years later
The paper analyzes the factors that allowed the expansion of the Brazilian Supreme Court since 1988 compared to other branches of government, but also in a concentration of decision-making powers vis-à-vis other judges and courts. Institutional explanations prevail, which credit the strengthening of STF to the Brazilian Constitution. But, in this process, what is the...
The Absence of Janus: Procedural and Substantive Limits To the Amending Power in Brazil
Contemporary constitutional democracies assume a dualistic political conception to distinguish the creation of the constitutional law from the ordinary legislation. Both procedural limits to the amending power and unamendable clauses aim to protect the constitution against its substitution or ordinary modification. However, the amending power does not fall into the same category as the original...
Tribunais de Contas (Courts of Audit): the new protagonist of the 30th year of the Brazilian Constitution
The Brazilian Constitution of 1988 did not create the Courts of Audit, which exist in Brazil since the XIX century and nowadays are present in each state and federal governments and serve the purpose to control the public budget and to judge how the officials manage public money. Nevertheless, the Brazilian Constitution promulgated in 1988...
The obsolescence of the hierarchy perspective of international treaties for the coordination between domestic law and international human rights law
This paper seeks to investigate the advances and setbacks of Brazilian constitutionalism in relation to international human rights law, hosting it with part of a Latin American constitutionalism, since the Brazilian Constitution of 1988 is one of those that opens what I prefer to define as “new Latin American constitutionalism”, definition opposed to what some...