O revigoramento do poder legislativo: uma agenda para o século XXI

Abstract

The Legislative Branch is vital to collective self-government and to restrain power. It is necessary to reinvigorate it. This dissertation brings proposals to increase the legitimacy of the Legislative Branch that are independent from the political reform. The first proposal consists in correcting some practices that compromise the performance of the Legislative, which are, the lack of appreciation of veto, the current form of budget preparation and execution, the excessive power of the leaders and the limited jurisdictional review of the due process of law. The second proposal aims at the strengthening of the committees, which are arenas more adequate than the Plenary to develop the deliberative potential of the Parliament. These fractional organs can use the impact assessment, which is a tool intended to improve legislation. The third proposal corresponds to the regulation of lobbying. The institutionalization of this activity is essential to imprint transparency to the process so as to allow control and to minimize the imbalance in access to decision makers.