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23/07/2012

Interactions between the Brazilian Supreme Court and the National Industry Union in Corporative Political Disputes

One of the main gaps in Brazilian political system literature is the absence of a pluralist approach to the interest groups system. All studies were restricted to an analytical model based on the principle that Brazil adopts a interest group system characterized by the State corporatism (or authoritarian corporatism) approach, in which interest groups and lobby strategies, in plural sense, mean an oxymoron. However, in recent studies, can be seen alternative approaches that consider constitutional design transformations dealing with the concept of a Brazilian hybrid interest group system. In fact, Diniz & Boschi (2004), Mancuso (2007) and Santos (2011) show the existence of a strong influence of interest groups in Brazilian political system, when analyzing industrial interests lobbying, but such approaches did focus only to executive and/or legislative branches. This research goes forward to the strengthening of pluralist perspective introducing evidences of a demand for industrial interest dispute resolution in Brazilian Supreme Court environment. The paper analyses constitutional actions (ADINs) suited by the National Industry Union (CNI), relating the judicial claims with the industrial legislative agenda. In other words, seeks to empirically estimate to what extent the industrial lobby represents a rent-seeking behavior and reflects the judicialization of political disputes.

http://ipsa.org/sites/default/files/ipsa-events/madrid2012/papers/paper-17374-2012-06-15-1722.pdf

Watching the Watchmen: Brazilian Supreme Court's Chief Justice Role in Checking Lower Court's Judicial Activism

The tension between political branches of government derives from checks and balances institutions in constitutional regimes, providing points of judicial activism in relevant political issues, in a phenomena that we got used to call judicialization of politics. In Brazilian legal system, the increasing application of the writ of suspension - a procedural instrument created to guarantee policy and legal stability and to block all divergent judicial decisions in lower court level - appears as a reaction to the judicialization of political issues favouring Executive branch interests. Such institutional tool empowers Court's Chief Justice to guarantee that public policies that reflect Executive's political preferences remain unaffected despite divergent judicial decisions from lower courts, basically arguing plausible violations from judicial acts to public order, economy, health or security. Consists in a reverse judicial review exercise in which judicial organs are object of institutional checks, in order to prevent private benefits from public policies damages. This research focuses on the analysis of Brazilian Supreme Court's Chief Justice decisions on writ of suspension, showing her role in stopping or preserving public policies.

http://ipsa.org/sites/default/files/ipsa-events/madrid2012/papers/paper-6512-2012-05-23-1442.pdf