As competências legislativas na Constituição de 1988: parâmetros para sua interpretação e para a solução de seus conflitos

Abstract

This paper aims to analyze critically the way heads of legislative power are read and enforced in Brazil. In particular, it tries to demonstrate that this subject can and should benefit from the modern techniques and instruments developed by contemporary Constitutional Law. The paper is divided in three parts. In the First Part, some theoretical premises are established, regarding constitutional interpretation, federalism, and the justiciability of federative conflicts, which shall guide the rest of the study. The Second Part examines the processes of characterization of laws and interpretation of heads of legislative power. After sketching a theory of legislative powers, the paper develops standards according to which, in principle, all heads of power ought to be read in their widest possible range, and restrictions imposed by heads of powers relating to other governments must be considered and justified argumentatively. In the Third Part, its last, the paper identifies the phenomenon of legal inconsistencies between heads of power usually forgotten by Brazilian authors and analyses some of the criteria proposed for their solution. Once the supremacy of federal law and the principle of subsidiarity, as well as content-based preferences are ruled out, the paper develops two form-based and one matter-based standard for the solution of the so-called real legal inconsistencies between heads of legislative power.