Dialogical constitutionalism manifestations in the Brazilian judicial review
| Autor | Vanice Regina Lírio do Valle |
| Cargo | Professora Permanente do Programa de Pós-Graduação em Direito da Universidade Estácio de Sá ? UNESA (Rio de Janeiro-RJ). Pós-doutorado pela EBAPE/Rio (Fundação Getúlio Vargas) |
| Páginas | 59-90 |
59
Revista de Investigações Constitucionais, Curitiba, vol. 1, n. 3, p. 59-90, set. /dez. 2014.
Licenciado sob uma Licença Creative Commons
Licensed under Creative Commons
Como citar este artigo | How to cite this article: VALLE, Vanice Regina Lírio do. Dialogical constitutionalism manifestations in the
Brazilian judicial review. Revista de Investigações Constitucionais, Curitiba, vol. 1, n. 3, p. 59-90, set./dez. 2014. DOI: http://
dx.doi.org/10.5380/rinc.v1i3.40515
* Professora Permanente do Programa de Pós-Graduação em Direito da Universidade Estácio de Sá – UNESA (Rio de Janeiro-RJ).
Pós-doutorado pela EBAPE/Rio (Fundação Getúlio Vargas). Doutorado em Direito pela Universidade Gama Filho (Rio de Janeiro-
-RJ). Membro do Instituto de Direito Administrativo do Estado do Rio de Janeiro.
Dialogical constitutionalism manifestations
in the Brazilian judicial review
Manifestações de constitucionalismo dialógico
na jurisdição constitucional brasileira
VANICE REGINA LÍRIO DO VALLE*
Universidade Estácio de Sá (Brasil)
vanicevalle@gmail.com
Recebido/Received: 21.10.2014 / October 21st, 2014
Aprovado/Approved: 12.12.2014 / December 12th, 2014
Resumo
O crescimento exponencial da jurisdição constitucional
no Brasil está em perfeita sintonia com o mesmo fenôme-
no no cenário internacional – e tem uma relação direta
com muitas características do Texto Fundamental. Ana-
lítica (mais de 400 artigos), e com um largo espectro de
direitos fundamentais, a Carta Constitucional brasileira
provê um ambiente que favorece intensa controvérsia
acerca das obrigações do Estado na oferta de bens e ser-
viços públicos, ou mesmo acerca das possíveis tensões
que podem surgir entre esses mesmos direitos. A Supre-
ma Corte brasileira enfrenta um número inadministrável
de feitos, muitos deles relacionados ao reclamo de não
garantia de direitos socio-economicos. Este cenário con-
duziu a Suprema Corte brasileira a um experimentalismo
na construção de suas próprias decisões, aplicando téc-
nicas que podem ser facilmente associadas com muitas
das manifestações das chamadas teorias dialógicas. To-
das estas experiências revelam que assegurar direitos
socioeconômicos como um objetivo de concretização
de justiça exige uma estratégia dialógica no exercício da
jurisdição constitucional, de maneira a assegurar imple-
mentação graduação, prevenindo a desigualdade. Não
Revista de Investigações Constitucionais
ISSN 2359-5639
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5380/rinc.v1i3.40515
Abstract
The exponential growth in judicial review in Brazil, compa-
red with the international scenery, is not out of tune – and
it has a direct relation with many Brazilian constitutional
features. An analytical text (with over 400 articles) and
a large spectrum of fundamental rights, provide an am-
bience that favors highly intense controversy about State
obligations in providing goods and public services, or even
about the possible tensions that may arise between those
same rights. The Brazilian Supreme Court faces that unma-
nageable number of lawsuits, notably related with claims
regarding the non-granting of socioeconomic rights. That
scenery is leading the Brazilian Supreme Court to some
kind of experimentalism in the designing of its own rulin-
gs, applying techniques that can be easily associated with
many manifestations of the so-called dialogical constitutio-
nalism. All those experiences reveal that granting socioeco-
nomic rights as a distributive justice goal requires a dialogic
strategy in judicial review, in order to provide progressive
implementation, preventing inequality. Still, those dialogic
provisions face serious obstacles related with the menace
of a merely symbolic use by the Judiciary and with a path
of substitutive deliberation again by the Judiciary leading
Revista de Investigações Constitucionais, Curitiba, vol. 1, n. 3, p. 59-90, set. /dez. 2014.
Vanice Regina Lírio do Valle
60
CONTENTS
Part I - Introduction. Part II - The Brazilian Constitution of 1988: a transformative project enforced throu-
gh judicial review. Part III - The Supreme Court as a policy examiner and the need to engage in dialo-
gical strategies. A) Establishing dialogue through public hearings. B) Establishing dialogue with the
Legislative branch through the writ of injunction. C) Establishing dialogue with the Legislative branch
through modulating the eects of a ruling. Part IV Dialoguing dierently: a conversation with the
society and with the Legislative. References.
PART I – INTRODUCTION
The introduction of dialogical features in judicial review is a strategy that have
been pointed as useful in order to overcome the never ending debate about legitimacy
of the judicial control of parliament’s decision. From the known experiences in Cana-
da1 and in the countries that integrated the former Commonwealth, going through
traditional systems in which judicial supremacy is presented as pillar like in the United
States2; adding dialogue to an authoritative decision that x boundaries to constitu-
tional understanding seems to be, at least in theory, a good idea. Even though the real
potential of the existing normative tools applied in various constitutional systems is
1 Presenting and debating the ecacy of the Canadian model, see HOGG, Peter W., BUSHELL, Allison A. Charter
Dialogue between Courts and Legislatures, The (Or Perhaps the Charter of Rights Isn’t Such a Bad Thing after All).
The Osgoode Hall Law Journal, v. 35, n. 1, Canadá, s.n., p. 75-124, 1997; MANFREDI, Christopher P., KELLY, James
B.. Six degrees of dialogue: A response to Hogg and Bushell. The Osgoode Hall Law Journal, v. 37, n. 3, Canadá,
s.n., p. 513-527, 1999; HOGG, Peter W., THORNTON, Allison A.. Reply to Six Degrees of Dialogue. The Osgoode
Hall Law Journal, v. 37, n. 3, Canadá, s.n., p. 529-536, 1999. The same authors revisited the original presentation
of the dialogical model in: HOGG, Peter M.; THORNTON, Allison A.; Bushell; WRIGHT, Wade K.. Charter Dialogue
Revisited-or Much Ado about Metaphors. The Osgoode Hall Law Journal, v. 45, n. 1, Canadá, s.n., p. 1-65, 2007.
2 BATEUP, Christine. Expanding the conversation: American and Canadian experiences of constitutional dia-
logue in comparative perspective. New York University Public Law and Legal Theory Working Papers, S.l.:
s.n. p. 2-66, 2007.
obstante isso, essas providências dialógicas enfrentam
sérios obstáculos relacionados à ameaça de um uso
meramente simbólico pelo Judiciário, e ainda com uma
trajetória de deliberação substitutiva, uma vez mais pelo
Judiciário, levando a um reforço da inércia legislativa, ou
à alienação da sociedade em relação ao tema debatido,
minando a responsavidade democrática. A adoção de
um modelo de constitucionalismo dialógico no Brasil
pode ser uma solução adequada para permitir que o sis-
tema alcance o desenvolvimento funcional dos objetivos
constitucionais – mas ainda requer uma reexão teórica
mais profunda.
Palavras-chave: jurisdição constitucional – diálogo
constitucional – enforcement de direitos humanos – equi-
líbrio e harmonia entre poderes.
to reinforce Legislative inertia, social alienation from the
debate and undermining democratic accountability. Adop-
ting a dialogical constitutionalism model in Brazil might be
a proper solution to allow its system to reach the functional
development of the constitution’s goals – but it requires a
deeper theoretical reection.
Keywords: judicial review – constitutional dialogue – hu-
man rights enforcement – checks and balances.
Dialogical constitutionalism manifestations in the Brazilian judicial review
61
Revista de Investigações Constitucionais, Curitiba, vol. 1, n. 3, p. 59-90, set. /dez. 2014.
still debatable,3 the openness in judicial review to contributions coming from other
role-players is something to be praised.
The Brazilian judicial review system is an extensive one, with many remedies
through which the Judiciary can be called to scrutinize the constitutionality of a norma-
tive provision, of an administrative rule or of a public policy4. Add to those an extensive
constitutional text, with more than 400 articles, and a broad list of fundamental rights
provided with immediate ecacy, and the result will be an intensive judicialization of
the conicts involving granting all of these duties of the State5.
Even though any judge, in any level of the Judiciary, can exercise judicial review
in the Brazilian system6, the nal decision regarding constitutional meaning relies in
the Supreme Court7 which is prompted to establish the content of a broad variety of
fundamental rights – including socioeconomic ones. Another challenging task that the
Brazilian constitution proposes to the Supreme Court, is overcoming legislative inertia,
through at least two dierent constitutional guarantees8.
3 Questioning the viability of a real dialogue, provoked by an authoritative invitation, see: TREMBLAY, Luc B. The
legitimacy of judicial review: The limits of dialogue between courts and legislatures. International Journal of
Constitutional Law, v. 3, n. 4, S.l., Oxford University Press and New York University School of Law, p. 617-648,
2005. BATEUP, Christine. The Dialogic Promise-Assessing the Normative Potential of Theories of Constitutional
Dialogue. Brookling Law Review, v. 71, S. l., New York University Public Law and Legal Theory Working Papers,
p. 5-24, 2006. Providing a particular approach of the dialogical theory applied to Latin American countries, see:
GARGARELLA, Roberto. We the People’Outside of the Constitution: The Dialogic Model of Constitutionalism and
the System of Checks and Balances. Current Legal Problems, v. 67, n. 1, S.l., Oxford University Press, p. 1-47, 2014.
4 The assertion that public policy is subject to ordinary judicial scrutiny is also a characteristics of the Brazilian
understanding of the limits to judicial review brought by the separation of power clause. Briey, the Supreme
Court has established that public policy might be judicially controlled every time public programs related
with the implementation of enforcement of fundamental rights do not exist, or are not capable of generating
proper protection. (VALLE, Vanice Lírio do. “Judicialization of Socioeconomic Rights in Brazil: Mercantilization
of the Fundamental Rights as a Deviance in Rights Protection.” In 3rd YCC Conference-American Society of
Comparative law, at the Lewis & Clark University, Portland, Oregon, in April. 2014).
5 VALLE, Vanice Lírio do. Judicialization of Socio-Economic Rights in Brazil: The Subversion of an Egalitarian
Discourse. Available at SSRN 2031719 (2012).
6 The constitutionality scrutiny made by ordinary judges throughout the Judiciary branch appears as a logical
premise to examine the claimed rights violation in the specic presented cases, and therefore are generally
not binding. That particular eect is reserved to decisions held by the Supreme Court in the abstract judicial
review.
7 In the Brazilian judicial system, the constitutional court is called Federal Supreme Court, hereinafter called,
indistinctively also as Supreme Court or Constitutional Court.
8 The Brazilian constitution provides judicial scrutiny of legislative inertia through an objective action dedi-
cated to declare a constitutional violation originated from the Legislative’s negligence in regulating a specic
right: Article 103, Paragraph 2. “When unconstitutionality is declared on account of lack of a measure to render a
constitutional provision eective, the competent Power shall be notied for the adoption of the necessary actions
and, in the case of an administrative body, to do so within thirty days”. Besides that provision, there is also a con-
stitutional writ – called writ of injunction – oriented to overcome a lack of regulation that is compromising the
exercise of a fundamental right. If this is the case, one can le a writ of injunction and obtain, from the Supreme
Court, a decision in which criteria will be established, in order to stop the constitutional violation and enable
the exercise of the claimed right. That constitutional writ is in the Chapter that enlists fundamental rights and
guarantees: Article 5, LXXI – “a writ of injunction shall be granted whenever the absence of a regulatory provision
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