Does Brazil need a notwithstanding clause?
| Autor | Luiz Henrique Diniz Araújo |
| Cargo | Professor of Law at the Universidade Federal de Pernambuco (Recife-PE, Brazil) |
| Páginas | 329-345 |
Licenciado sob uma Licença Creative Commons
Licensed under Creative Commons
Does Brazil need a notwithstanding clause?
O Brasil precisa de uma cláusula do não obstante?
LUIZ HENRIQUE DINIZ ARAÚJO I, *
I Universidade Federal de Pernambuco (Recife-PE, Brasil)
luizdinizaraujo@hotmail.com
http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7682-0038
Recebido/Received: 13.11.2021/ November 13th, 2021
Aprovado/Approved: 06.03.2022/ March 6th, 2022
Revista de Investigações Constitucionais
ISSN 2359-5639
DOI: 10.5380/rinc.v9i2.86385
Rev. Investig. Const., Curitiba, vol. 9, n. 2, p. 329-345, maio/ago. 2022. 329
Como citar esse artigo/How to cite this article: ARAÚJO, Luiz Henrique Diniz. Does Brazil need a notwithstanding clause? Revista
de Investigações Constitucionais, Curitiba, vol. 9, n. 2, p. 329-345, maio/ago. 2022. DOI: 10.5380/rinc.v9i2.86385
* Professor of Law at the Universidade Federal de Pernambuco (Recife-PE, Brazil). Doctor of Laws and Master of Laws from the
Universidade Federal de Pernambuco. Visiting Researcher at the University of California, Berkeley (California, USA). Post-Doctoral
Fellowship at Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. Federal Attorney. E-mail: luizdinizaraujo@hotmail.com
Abstract
In the last decade, Brazilian Supreme Court has been
playing a very important role in the democratic process,
raising concerns on judicial activism and on the so-called
“juristocracy”. One of the ideas that comes up to tackle
those issues is the adoption of a Canadian-style notwith-
standing clause. Revolving the notwithstanding clause
features and its practical exercise in Canada, the paper
contends that it is not suitable for Brazilian constitution-
al system of strong judicial review. It also demonstrates
that such a constitutional instrument would not help
the improvement of institutional dialogues between the
judiciary and legislative branches nor eectively remedy
hints of judicial activism.
Keywords: judicial review; notwithstanding clause; judi-
cial activism; judicial review; institutional dialogues.
Resumo
Na última década, o Supremo Tribunal Federal (Brasil) tem
desempenhado um importante papel no processo demo-
crático, suscitando preocupação em relação ao ativismo ju-
dicial e à assim chamada “juristocracia”. Uma das ideias que
surge para enfrentar esses temas é a adoção de uma cláu-
sula do não obstante oriunda do constitucionalismo cana-
dense. Partindo da análise das características da cláusula
do não obstante e do seu exercício na prática canadense,
este artigo defende que ela não é adequada para o sistema
brasileiro de controle de constitucionalidade forte. Tam-
bém demonstra que um tal instrumento constitucional
não ajudaria no aprimoramento de diálogos institucionais
judiciário-legislativo, tampouco teria utilidade prática no
constrangimento ao ativismo judicial.
Palavras-chave: controle judicial de constitucionalida-
de; cláusula do não obstante; ativismo judicial; controle
judicial de constitucionalidade, diálogos institucionais.
LUIZ HENRIQUE DINIZ ARAÚJO
Rev. Investig. Const., Curitiba, vol. 9, n. 2, p. 329-345, maio/ago. 2022.
330
SUMÁRIO
1. Introduction; 2. The Canadian notwithstanding clause; 2.1. The Section 33 Provisions; 2.2. The his-
torical context of the enactement of the Charter; 2.3. The notwithstanding clause in practice; 3. Is a
notwithstanding clause t for Brazil?; 3.1. Institutional dialogues; 3.2. Court packing; 3.3. The notwiths-
tanding clause and judicial activism; 4. Conclusion; 5. References.
1. INTRODUCTION
Brazilian democracy has been completely refounded since the enactement of
the Federal Constitution in October 1988, after having lived under a more than two
decade military dictatorship.
The 1988 Constitution is an extensive one (it contains 250 articles and was
amended more than 100 times). Subjetcs as diverse as individual rights, public health-
care assistance, many aspects of family law, protection of the elderly people, protection
of the indigenous people, the tax system, social security law, for instance, are entren-
ched in the text. These are issues that in many other democracies are left to the political
process, but in Brazil they have a constitutional status and are subject to judicial review.
Per se, this phenomenon brings those themes to potential litigation in courts.
This trend is reassured by the model of Brazilian judicial review adopted by the
Constitution-1988, that combines the United States model (diuse model) and the Eu-
ropean model (abstract model). As a result, in Brazilian system, every judge is entitled
to declare a statute unconstitutional in the case to be decided. In addition to that, there
are direct actions (or direct constitutional lawsuits) that are decided exclusively by the
Supreme Court in an abstract fashion (with general eects). A wide range of public and
private actors is entitled to le these lawsuits directly into the Supreme Court.
In this broad context, Brazilian Supreme Court (and also the lower courts and
judges) has been playing a very important role in the democratic process. This has lead
to many important decisions involving gay marriage, abortion, assisted suicide, the re-
form of the social security system, the reform of the political system, all sorts of envi-
ronmental cases, tax matters, educational matters, criminal law matters, among others.
In this context, judicialization of politics and judicial activism are current subjets in the
media and among scholars’s papers and conferences.
In the wake of all this growing participation of the Supreme Court into public
decisions, not always in a deferencial way, one of the major concerns in the media,
among public actors, citizens and Constitutional Law scholars is to reconcile the exerci-
se of judicial review with the role of Parliament.
In this complex context, one of the conceptions that comes up is the adoption
of a Canadian-style “overriding clause” in Brazilian Constitution that would supposedly
enhance institutional dialogues (judiciary-legislative) and constrain judicial activism.
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