“Em nome da democracia”, em plena ditadura: disputas político-institucionais em torno da implantação do controle abstrato de constitucionalidade no processo de aprovação da Emenda Constitucional nº 16 de 1965

Abstract

In this dissertation, I formulate a historiographical narrative about the political-institutional disputes between the Executive and the Legislative regarding the implementation of abstract constitutionality control by the Emenda Constitucional nº. 16 of 1965, at the beginning of the first military dictatorial government. In the first chapter, I attempt to outline the political context of the moment, searching for the political horizons of the Castello Branco government in its first two years. Supported by the bibliography already produced on the theme and the analysis of the EC’s proposed during the period, I verify that, on the political level, the military and the President of the Republic operated an authoritarian institutional reform. In the second chapter, I seek to understand the government's interests in implementing the abstract control, established by the EC 16/1965, proposed by the Executive (PEC 6/65). To this purpose, I formulate the first part of the narrative, problematizing historically the process of formulation of PEC 6/65: from the clashes between the militaries and the STF since 1964, until the proposal was sent to Congress in November 1965. At the end, I point out that one of the changes made by the congressmen during the deliberation of the project was the maintenance of the senatorial power to suspend the execution of rules declared unconstitutional. Thus, after noting that the requesters of this change were Pedro Aleixo and Daniel Krieger, government leaders at the time, I seek, in the third chapter, to understand the reasons behind the rejection, at least in part, of the interests those congressmen represented. In this sense, after framing them as "Bacharéis Udenistas", I analyze their parliamentary performance during the Brazilian Third Republic and the beginning of the Military Dictatorship. As a conclusion, I maintain that the military executive envisioned the implementation of abstract control as part of a larger project, i.e., the authoritarian institutional reform outlined in the first chapter. In turn, the “Bacharéis Udenistas”, avid defenders of the political agenda of the Castello Branco government, acted, on one hand, in favor of the independence of the Legislative, which was remarkable throughout the entire parliamentary performance of both Krieger and Aleixo, and, on the other hand, foreseeing a possibile future attainment of power, considering that, with their action, they did not leave aside their commitments to the (supposed) Revolution, as they denied the transfer of an institutional faculty from the Legislative to the Judiciary, and not to the Executive.