Ativismo judicial no Brasil : o Supremo Tribunal Federal como arena de deliberação politica

Abstract

A question of great importance nowadays, in the domain of Political Science, is the fact that the Supreme Court is deciding political subjects, what is called judicial activism. This expression means that the Court is not only interpretating but also creating new rules. The tendency has been taking political questions to the Court, which causes political issues to be presented as judicial too. In all these subjects, we must remember that the the direction both for political and judicial activities is Constitution. However, the Supreme Court has adopted a new concept of interpretation, in order to allow the correction and modification of laws, the creation of new rules, including constitutional ones, all these by interpretation processes. Three important questions demonstrate clearly this tendency, which are: verticalisation of political colligations, compulsory installation of inquiry commitees and party loyalty. These questions are strictly political, so that the judicial decisions about them can be included in the domain of judicial activism. In fact, we can observe, in Brazil, an expansion of the Supreme Court in the analysis and deliberation of political questions, activities refused by its members in ancient decisions. Our goal is to identify the causes of this new behavior of the Supreme Court, which modifies the ancient patern concerning the imposibility to judge strictly political questions