DOCSLIB.ORG

The Supreme Court Nominations in Brazil (1985-2010): Presidential Or Coalitional Preferences?

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The Supreme Court Nominations in Brazil (1985-2010): Presidential Or Coalitional Preferences? V Congreso Latinoamericano de Ciencia Política. Asociación Latinoamericana de Ciencia Política, Buenos Aires, 2010. The Supreme Court Nominations in Brazil (1985-2010): Presidential or Coalitional Preferences?. Barreiro Lemos Leany y Llanos Mariana. Cita: Barreiro Lemos Leany y Llanos Mariana (2010). The Supreme Court Nominations in Brazil (1985-2010): Presidential or Coalitional Preferences?. V Congreso Latinoamericano de Ciencia Política. Asociación Latinoamericana de Ciencia Política, Buenos Aires. Dirección estable: http://www.aacademica.org/000-036/573 Acta Académica es un proyecto académico sin fines de lucro enmarcado en la iniciativa de acceso abierto. Acta Académica fue creado para facilitar a investigadores de todo el mundo el compartir su producción académica. Para crear un perfil gratuitamente o acceder a otros trabajos visite: http://www.aacademica.org. The Supreme Court Nominations in Brazil (1985-2010): Presidential or Coalitional Preferences? Leany Barreiro Lemos Oxford-Princeton Post-Doctoral Fellow – University of Oxford [email protected] Mariana Llanos GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies – Hamburg [email protected] Paper Outline: 1. Introduction (p.2) 2. A Framework for the Analysis of Brazilian Nominations (p.4) 3. Brazilian Federal Courts: General Features and Nomination Rules (p.7) 4. Presidential or Coalitional Preferences: Indicators and Data (p.12) 4.a. The President and the Senate (p.13) 4.b. The Selection of a Candidate (p.16) 5. Discussion (p.22) 6. Conclusion (p.24) References (p.26) Table 3 – Legislative Process of Supreme Court Nominations, Brazil, 1989-2010 (p.28) Table 4 – Winning Candidates Profile - Supreme Court Judges, 1985-2010 (p.30) 1 1. Introduction In the last decades there has been a considerable growth of both legislative and judicial studies in the Latin American region. A prominent place among the first ones corresponds to works dealing with executive-legislative relations, whilst the study of executive-court relations has done remarkable progress among the second as well. Still, quite few works within these research areas address the nomination and appointment process for higher court justices, the central focus of this paper. Presidents and Congresses are usually key institutions in these processes, but the role they play in the dynamics of nominations are mostly unknown. Under what constraints do presidents select the nominees? Who else participates in the process? Is there anticipation of preferences of the different political actors, leading to a more centred candidate, or is it a unilateral unconstrained decision that ends up in overtly closed ideological choices? In this paper we concentrate mainly on the analysis of the nomination process for the Federal Supreme Court (STF) in Brazil since the new Constitution of 1988. Brazil is a very interesting case for understanding president-court relations, combining powerful presidents with powerful and independent courts. Indeed, the Brazilian executive was granted a prominent position in the constitution of 1988, and many authors have stressed how presidents enjoy considerable legislative prerogatives (e.g. on budget and by issuing emergency decrees), as well as agenda power, informational advantages, and expertise (Carey and Shugart 1998; Shugart and Carey 1992; Mainwaring and Shugart 1997; Figueiredo 2001). Also, mirroring the US constitution, Brazilian presidents were granted the prerogative to nominate the members of the upper courts, after confirmation by the Senate. However, contrasting with the formal power they have to set the legislative agenda and organise the executive branch, the presidents’ power over the nomination of higher courts’ judges is relatively limited. Firstly, the rules for nomination in the higher courts are very tight: only for the Federal Supreme Court can the president choose “freely”. For the other higher courts – military, higher justice court, higher labour court etc. – the president chooses over a short list of three that is prepared by the courts themselves. Secondly, presidents in Brazil do not discharge judges, and new appointments can only happen after the resignation, 70-year compulsory retirement or death of their members. Because resignations are very rare, presidents know in advance how many seats they will appoint, and when this will happen. Brazil is the only country in the region in which judicial turnover does not significantly change during the first months of a new administration (Perez Liñán and Castagnola 2009: 2 107). President Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva (2003-2010) was the first president in the democratic period initiated in 1985 to appoint more than 50 percent of the supreme court justices. Because the Brazilian Senate hardly ever refused a nomination1, it could in principle be affirmed that presidents select according to their preferences, and that the Senate rubber- stamps presidential candidates. Nevertheless, the features of particular appointment processes and those of the winning appointees suggest that politics plays a role in the process and that presidents often act under constraints. In the following pages, we depart from the established idea that Brazilian presidents are at the centre of a mixed political system with contradictory incentives –including both majoritarian and consensual elements (Lijphart 1999), which sometimes allows them to impose their view and sometimes forces them to negotiate. It is known that tensions within this system affect the contents of the presidential legislative agenda, and we assume that they will also have an impact on judicial appointments. Moreover, the study of judicial appointments in a political system characterised by “coalition presidentialism” adds new evidence to the fragmentation theory and its effects for judicial empowerment. Brazilian presidents run majority coalitions, as a result of which the two branches of government are coordinated and presidents get their policies/candidates approved. However, majority coalition governments do not work as typical single-party majority governments and presidential proposals succeed once they have passed the many filters posed by the system, particularly (but not only) those of the coalition partners located at the centre and centre-right of the political spectrum. This paper is organized in five sections. Section two provides the literature review and introduces the analytical framework for the study of Brazilian appointments. The third section brings a brief description of the judicial system in Brazil, as well as the formal rules governing the nomination process for the upper courts. In section four we present a set of indicators of presidential and coalitional preferences that we use to analyse the 21 appointment processes that took place in the period of analysis. Section five brings some tentative explanations of the variations in appointment processes found out in the previous section. Section six concludes. 2. A Framework for the Analysis of Brazilian Nominations 1 It happened only 5 times, all in the 19th century, under President Floriano Peixoto (1891-1894). 3 For a long time, political scientists have pointed at the concentration of power in the presidency as one of the main challenges to the rule of law in new democracies (Haggard, MacIntyre and Tiede 2008). During the third wave of democratization, different reform processes gave courts an increasingly important political role, which could be observed in growing judicial influence on policies and increased resort to the courts by different social and political actors (Gloppen, Gargarella and Skaar 2004; Sieder, Schjolden and Angell 2005). With courts increasingly making substantive policy as well as regulating political activities, there was also a growing political and public interest in who judges were and how they were chosen (Malleson and Russell 2006). Elected officials, in particular, regained interest to influence as far as possible who sits on the courts and who fills important positions in the judicial system, as some recent works on Latin America highlight (Domingo 2004). Since the 1990s, unaccountable presidents have been caught governing by bypassing the legislative branch, whilst their encroachments upon the judiciary and other agencies of government have been regarded as the most serious threat to “horizontal accountability” (O’Donnell 2003: 45). A recent comparative study on Supreme Court appointments in Latin America has demonstrated that, just as in the US case, Supreme Court vacancies and appointments have been influenced by political considerations. However, in Latin America, more common than not, presidents rather than justices themselves are those responsible for the timing of judicial retirements and nominations (Perez Liñan and Castagnola 2009). In democratic regimes, extreme executive actions are more likely under particular contextual situations. A prominent theory within the judicial studies states that the level of political fragmentation among the branches of government – the executive and the legislature - has important consequences for the empowerment and independence of the courts (Chavez 2004; Ríos Figueroa 2007; Solomon 2007: 127). When the elective institutions of a political system are dominated by a single party, there are more risks that judicial decisions be overruled, challenged with non-compliance or with more aggressive policies, such as court-packing and impeachment. Instead, when fragmentation increases, coordination among those branches becomes
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Diana Kapiszewski WEB APPENDICES
    HIGH COURTS AND ECONOMIC GOVERNANCE IN ARGENTINA AND BRAZIL Diana Kapiszewski January 2012 WEB APPENDICES Kapiszewski ~ High Courts and Economic Governance ~ Web Appendices Web Appendix 2.1 Argentine CSJN Annual Case Load Statistics, 1991-2010 Year Total % of Total Total % of Total Total % of Total Total % of Total Pre- Pre- Entered Entered Decided Decided in Course in Course at Existing Existing and/or Relating to Relating to at End End of Year Relating Relating to Pensions1 Reinitiated Pensions Pensions of Year2 to Pensions 1991 8,939 5,532 6,036 8,435 1992 8,435 6,546 5,804 9,177 1993 7,723 24,815 6,604 24,877 1994 24,900 36,723 5,393 56,329 1995 56,994 86% 16,910 63% 7,628 13% 66,875 89% 1996 66,875 89% 23,544 78% 9,443 33% 81,619 92% 1997 82,453 92% 9,811 43% 41,318 86% 55,626 88% 1998 55,638 88% 8,057 20% 54,043 89% 17,896 59% 1999 17,896 59% 13,818 16% 21,208 54% 15,842 24% 2000 17,488 47% 17,971 59% 15,544 57% 20,005 50% 2001 20,005 50% 14,631 48% 15,333 55% 19,373 44% 2002 19,373 44% 42,055 28% 36,526 22% 24,902 49% 2003 37,147 35% 31,470 55% 18,980 60% 49,637 37% 2004 46,109 40% 37,726 33% 20,963 62% 62,872 28% 2005 62,872 28% 36,354 14% 20,485 55% 78,741 15% 2006 63,905 15% 30,544 15% 12,934 27% 79,781 13% 2007 78,247 13% 28,093 10% 54,123 5% 46,696 23% 2008 46,505 23% 22,817 20% 22,900 17% 29,676 33% 2009 29,676 33% 14,306 25% 21,500 24% 16,533 27% 2010 16,886 27% 15,138 30% 13,637 26% 17,117 35% Source: Oficina de Estadísticas del Poder Judicial de la Nación.
    [Show full text]
  • Electronic Signatures Digital Signatures NEWS
    NEWS: Electronic signatures United States of America England and Wales Proposed Rule to permit investors to obtain proxy materials over the internet In the case of Mehta v J Pereira Fernandes S A [2006] On 29 November 2005, the Securities and Exchange EWHC 813 (Ch), His Honour Judge Pelling QC, sitting as Commission (SEC) voted to propose for public a Judge of the High Court, overturned an earlier comment rules that will allow the internet to be used to decision of District Judge Harrison of the Manchester enable companies and others to deliver proxy County Court, in which he determined that an e-mail materials. The SEC explained the position in their press address was not capable of being a form of electronic release: signature. Compare this decision with the case of ‘When a person solicits a proxy from the 1327/2001 – Payment Order, as reported Georgia shareholders of a company that is subject to the Skouma in e-Signature Law Journal, Volume 1, Number Commission’s proxy rules, Rule 14a-3 currently requires 2, 2004, 95 – 98, in which a Greek judge held that an e- that a proxy statement, which must include specified mail address was capable of being a form of electronic disclosure, be delivered with or prior to that signature. See also the US case of Roger Edwards LLC v solicitation. Further, when a company solicits proxies, it Fiddes & Son Limited 245 F.Supp.2d (D.Me. 2003) and also must deliver an annual report to shareholders, the Singapore case of SM Integrated Transware Pte Ltd which must include additional specified disclosure.
    [Show full text]
  • The Recognition of Domestic Workers' Labor Rights and the Debate Over The
    The recognition of domestic workers’ labor rights and the debate over the legacy of slavery in Brazil Stefanie Prange de Oliveira Master in International Studies Supervisor: Dr. Thais França, Visiting Assistant Professor, ISCTE-Instituto Universitário de Lisboa October, 2020 The recognition of domestic workers’ labor rights and the debate over the legacy of slavery in Brazil Stefanie Prange de Oliveira Master in International Studies Supervisor: Dr. Thais França, Visiting Assistant Professor, ISCTE-Instituto Universitário de Lisboa October, 2020 2 Acknowledgements/Agradecimentos I would like to thank the following people, without whom I would not have been able to finish this dissertation. // Desejo exprimir os meus sinceros agradecimentos a todos aqueles que, de alguma forma, permitiram que esta tese se concretizasse. To my interviewees, for their willingness to share their time, knowledge, and experiences with me. Thank you for your collaboration. // Às entrevistadas, que com paciência responderam ao questionário da pesquisa, compartilharam seus conhecimentos, e dispensaram o seu tempo em prol deste meu objetivo pessoal. Muito obrigada pela pela disponibilidade e a colaboração. To my supervisor, Dr. Thais França, for the encouragement, constructive criticism, and your reliability. I deeply appreciate your persistent guidance and feedback. To my parents, my role models, who have raised me affectionately, always making sure that I feel equally connected to both of my home countries, Brazil and Germany. Without your constant support and your bicultural education, I would have lacked the inspiration to engage in the topic of this thesis. To my family, my friends and to all of those who have been part of my life journey.
    [Show full text]
  • Drafting-Arbitration-Agreements.Pdf
    46 Latin America EXPERT VIEW: INTERNATIONAL ARBITRATION DRAFTING ARBITRATION AGREEMENTS Duncan Speller and Victoria Narancio of WilmerHale discuss the most important factors to consider when drafting an effective international arbitration agreement with Brazilian parties or for arbitrations seated in Brazil n 2010, the World Bank reported that Brazil had been sent for approval to the Brazilian Senate, and is the biggest economy in Latin America and the expected to be enacted at some point during 2014). Iseventh largest in the world. It is likely that Brazil's Furthermore, recent judicial decisions from Brazil’s economy will continue to grow. Analysts foresee that higher courts suggest that there is an increased between 2012 and 2020, a total of USD 809.4 billion receptiveness to international arbitration, and as a result, will be invested in the country’s energy and oil and gas Brazil is becoming a popular venue for arbitrations infrastructure, and in its telecommunications, health seated in Latin America. For instance, in Weil Brother and transport sectors alone. As a result of Brazil’s Cotton Inc v Clóvis Augustin, a case decided in 2013, economic expansion, the country has become a major the Superior Court of Justice of Brazil (“STJ”) rejected player in international trade, and attracts investors a challenge against the enforcement of an award, worldwide. Brazil’s economic expansion and increase recognising that the respondent had been properly in cross-border commerce has inevitably resulted in an served, and further confirming that the court was not increase of domestic and international arbitrations. entitled to enter into an analysis of the merits during the In addition, the use of international arbitration has stage of enforcement (see Weil Brother Cotton Inc v Clóvis increased because of Brazil’s legal framework, which is Augustin, STJ, Sentença Estrangeira Contestada No.
    [Show full text]
  • 4C4820bf2.Pdf
    Biblioteca Digital da Câmara dos Deputados Centro de Documentação e Informação Coordenação de Biblioteca http://bd.camara.gov.br "Dissemina os documentos digitais de interesse da atividade legislativa e da sociedade.” 3 rd Edition 2010 Constitutional text of October 5, 1988, with the alterations introduced by Constitutional Amendments No. 1/1992 through 64/2010 and by Revision Constitutional Amendments No. 1/1994 through 6/1994. CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES Constitutional Amendments No. 1/1994 through 6/1994. 1/1994 through No. Amendments Constitutional Constitutional Amendments No. 1/1992 through Constitutional 64/2010 text and of by October Revision 5, 1988, with the alterations introduced by ISBN 978-85-736-5736-4 9 7 8 8 5 7 3 6 5 7 3 6 4 Chamber of Deputies Directing Board 53rd Congress – 4th Session 2010 President Michel Temer 1st Vice President Marco Maia 2nd Vice President Antonio Carlos Magalhães Neto 1st Secretary Rafael Guerra 2nd Secretary Inocêncio Oliveira 3rd Secretary Odair Cunha 4th Secretary Nelson Marquezelli Substitutes 1st Substitute Marcelo Ortiz 2nd Substitute Giovanni Queiroz 3rd Substitute Leandro Sampaio 4th Substitute Manoel Junior General Manager Sérgio Sampaio Contreiras de Almeida Secretary General to the Governing Board Mozart Vianna de Paiva CONSTITUTION OF THE FEDERATIVE REPUBLIC OF BRAZIL miolo_constitution_versao_camara.indd 1 17/6/2010 15:00:59 Chamber of Deputies CONSTITUTION OF THE FEDERATIVE REPUBLIC OF BRAZIL 3rd edition Constitutional text of October 5, 1988, with the alterations introduced by Constitutional Amendments No. 1/1992 through 64/2010 and by Revision Constitutional Amendments No. 1/1994 through 6/1994. Documentation and Information Center Publishing Coordination Brasília – 2010 CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES LEGISLATIVE DIVISION Head Afrísio Vieira Lima Filho DOCUMENTATION AND INFORMATION CENTER Head Adolfo C.
    [Show full text]
  • The Impeachment Process of Brazil: a Comparative Look at Impeachment in Brazil and the United States, 49 U
    University of Miami Law School University of Miami School of Law Institutional Repository University of Miami Inter-American Law Review 1-2-2018 The mpI eachment Process of Brazil: A Comparative Look at Impeachment in Brazil and the United States Alexandra Rattinger Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.law.miami.edu/umialr Part of the Comparative and Foreign Law Commons Recommended Citation Alexandra Rattinger, The Impeachment Process of Brazil: A Comparative Look at Impeachment in Brazil and the United States, 49 U. Miami Inter-Am. L. Rev. 129 (2018) Available at: https://repository.law.miami.edu/umialr/vol49/iss1/7 This Notes and Comments is brought to you for free and open access by University of Miami School of Law Institutional Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in University of Miami Inter-American Law Review by an authorized editor of University of Miami School of Law Institutional Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The Impeachment Process of Brazil: A Comparative Look at Impeachment in Brazil and the United States. Alexandra Rattinger I. INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................130 II. BACKGROUND ..........................................................................132 A. Transitional Period of Military Regime to Democratic Means ...............................................................................132 B. Finally, Democracy ..........................................................134 III. SUMMARY OF CONSTITUTIONS AND LAWS REGARDING IMPEACHMENT—THE BRAZILIAN CONSTITUTION AND LAW NO. 1079 AND THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION USED TO COMPARE THE UNITED STATES’ IMPEACHMENT PROCESS TO BRAZIL’S. ..........................................................................135 A. Impeachment Under the United States Constitution ........136 B. Impeachment Under the Brazilian Constitution ...............139 C. Law No. 1079 (1950)- Crimes of Responsibility ..............144 IV. MODERN IMPEACHMENTS IN BRAZIL AND THE UNITED STATES.
    [Show full text]
  • Determinants of Judicial Efficiency Change: Evidence from Brazil
    Determinants of Judicial Efficiency Change: Evidence from Brazil Thiago A. Fauvrellea, Alessio Tony C. Almeidab aInstitute of Law & Economics, University of Hamburg, Germany - Rotterdam Institute of Law & Economics, Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Email: [email protected] bGraduate Program in Economics, Federal University of Paraiba, Brazil. Email: [email protected] Abstract Judicial efficiency matters for economic development. Nevertheless, the determinants of judicial productivity growth are not entirely understood in the literature. Using data of Brazil’s state courts for the period of 2009 to 2014, this paper analyses judicial productivity change and its possible determinants over time in a two stage approach. First, data envelopment analysis is used to calculate Malmquist productivity measures which are decomposed in: technical change (frontier-shift effect) and efficiency change which is composed of pure efficiency change (catch-up effect) and scale efficiency change (size effect). In the second stage, fixed effect models are estimated to evaluate the determinants of judicial productivity growth. The first stage results show a slight improvement in judicial productivity trend, which is defined mainly by efficiency change, since technical change deteriorated in the period. While the second stage findings suggest the inexistence of a trade-off between judicial quality and efficiency improvement, while judges remuneration, legal complexity and technology use affect judicial productivity, however not always in the expected direction. Keywords: Judicial Efficiency, Malmquist Index, Productivity, Brazilian Courts Resumo A eficiência judicial é importante para o desenvolvimento econômico, contudo os determinantes do cresci- mento da produtividade da justiça não são totalmente compreendidos na literatura. Usando dados de tribunais estaduais do Brasil para o período de 2009-2014, este artigo analisa a mudança da produtividade judicial e seus possíveis determinantes ao longo do tempo em uma abordagem de dois estágios.
    [Show full text]
  • The Case of Drug Distribution in the State of São Paulo Brazilian Political Science Review, Vol
    Brazilian Political Science Review E-ISSN: 1981-3821 [email protected] Associação Brasileira de Ciência Política Brasil Elias de Oliveira, Vanessa; Noronha, Lincoln N. T. Judiciary-Executive Relations in Policy Making: The Case of Drug Distribution in the State of São Paulo Brazilian Political Science Review, vol. 5, núm. 2, 2011, pp. 10-38 Associação Brasileira de Ciência Política São Paulo, Brasil Available in: http://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=394341998001 How to cite Complete issue Scientific Information System More information about this article Network of Scientific Journals from Latin America, the Caribbean, Spain and Portugal Journal's homepage in redalyc.org Non-profit academic project, developed under the open access initiative brazilianpoliticalsciencereview ARTICLE Judiciary-Executive Relations in Policy Making: The Case of Drug Distribution in the State of São Paulo Vanessa Elias de Oliveira Universidade Federal do ABC (UFABC), Brazil Lincoln N. T. Noronha Universidade de São Paulo (USP), Brazil This paper aims to demonstrate how the responses of public health officials to judicial decisions have shaped drug distribution policies in the state of São Paulo. Data was collected and structured interviews were conducted at the state of São Paulo Department for Health in order to show how different strategies of response to judicial decisions affected the policy of medication distribution by the public sector. We also analysed recent Supreme Federal Court jurisprudence to show how the Court reformed its earlier views on the subject as a result of the demands made by public health officials. It is our understanding that the current literature has failed to produce a more comprehensive view of this phenomenon because of its focus solely on judicial decisions, without taking a step further to analyse how public health officials reacted to them, which would have addressed the compliance problem inherent to positive rights enforcement.
    [Show full text]
  • Pontifícia Universidade Católica Do Rio Grande Do Sul Escola De Humanidades Programa De Pós-Graduação Em História
    PONTIFÍCIA UNIVERSIDADE CATÓLICA DO RIO GRANDE DO SUL ESCOLA DE HUMANIDADES PROGRAMA DE PÓS-GRADUAÇÃO EM HISTÓRIA RODRIGO DAL FORNO “COMO SE EM POLÍTICA FOSSE POSSÍVEL AGIR SEM MANHA, SEM O SENSO DE OPORTUNIDADE”: O PROCESSO DE FORMAÇÃO E ATUAÇÃO DO PARTIDO LIBERTADOR E SUAS LIDERANÇAS NO BRASIL REPUBLICANO (1922-1933) Porto Alegre 2020 RODRIGO DAL FORNO “Como se em política fosse possível agir sem manha, sem o senso de oportunidade”: o processo de formação e atuação do Partido Libertador e suas lideranças no Brasil Republicano (1922-1933) Tese apresentada como requisito para a obtenção do grau de Doutor pelo Programa de Pós-Graduação em História da Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul. Área de concentração: História das Sociedades Ibéricas e Americanas. Orientador: Prof. Dr. Luciano Aronne de Abreu Porto Alegre 2020 RODRIGO DAL FORNO “Como se em política fosse possível agir sem manha, sem o senso de oportunidade”: o processo de formação e atuação do Partido Libertador e suas lideranças no Brasil Republicano (1922-1933) Tese apresentada como requisito para a obtenção do grau de Doutor pelo Programa de Pós-Graduação em História da Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul. Área de concentração: História das Sociedades Ibéricas e Americanas. Aprovado em: _____ de ______________________ de _________. BANCA EXAMINADORA: ________________________________________________________ Prof. Dr. Luciano Aronne de Abreu (PUCRS) ________________________________________________________ Profa. Dra. Cláudia Maria Ribeiro Viscardi (UFJF) ________________________________________________________ Prof. Dr. Luiz Alberto Grijó (UFRGS) ________________________________________________________ Prof. Dr. René Ernaini Gertz (PUCRS) _________________________________________________________ Profa. Dra. Surama Condé Sá Pinto (UFRRJ) Porto Alegre 2020 À minha Melina, com a esperança de que ela possa crescer em um Brasil mais justo, democrático e tolerante.
    [Show full text]
  • A Case Note Regarding Limited Liability in Brazilian Law
    Francisco de Assis Marques v Center Trading Indústria e Comércio Ltda – a case note regarding limited liability in Brazilian Law by Bruno Caraciolo Ferreira Albuquerque Abstract This case note provides an objective notion regarding limited liability in Brazilian law. Francisco de Assis Marques v Center Trading Indústria e Comércio Ltda is a recent case from February, 2013, decided by the Brazilian Supreme Federal Court. The case note is divided into five parts. The first part provides a notion about the Brazilian courts’ system and its decisions on limited liability. The second part presents the Brazilian Superior Labour Court’s position on this subject. The third part discusses the interpretation given on this issue by the Brazilian Superior Court of Justice regarding limited liability. In the fourth part the proper case study is developed, clarifying the facts involved, the Court’s decision and its effects. Finally, in the fifth part I present my conclusions linking this subject to the initiative of a new Brazilian Commercial Code, affirming that this important event may have a great efficacy not just by the means of well-drafted general rules but also as a great opportunity to the Brazilian legal community to unify its position about the matter, and to provide more legal certainty for investments in the country. 1. The Brazilian Supreme Courts and the Superior Courts Jurisdiction and Limited Liability Interpretation The parties involved in a lawsuit in Brazil may face several court levels until a final decision. The top of Brazil´s court system is the Federal Supreme Court (STF), a constitutional tribunal.
    [Show full text]
  • Brazilian Political Science Review Vol 5, No 2
    Volume 5 Number 2 2011 bpsr brazilianpoliticalsciencereview a journal of the brazilian political science association Articles Vanessa Elias de Oliveira, Lincoln N . T. Noronha Judiciary-Executive Relations in Policy Making: The Case of Drug Distribution in the State of São Paulo Mariana Batista da Silva Independence after Delegation? Presidential calculus and political interference in Brazilian regulatory agencies Eduardo Munhoz Svartman Brazil-United States military relations during the Cold War: Political dynamic and arms transfers Márcia Miranda Soares, Pedro Robson Pereira Neiva Federalism and Public Resources in Brazil: Federal Discretionary Transfers to States Carlos Aurélio Pimenta de Faria, Gustavo Gomes Machado Policies of Space and the Space of Politics: The “Negotiated Expansion” of the Belo Horizonte Metropolitan Area Book Review Paula E. Vedoveli New Interpretations on the Life and Ideas of Raúl Prebisch (1901-1986) bpsr brazilianpoliticalsciencereview a journal of the brazilian political science association Volume 5 Number 2 2011 EDITORS EDITORIAL COMMITTEE Gilberto Hochman (Fiocruz, Brazil) Adam Przeworski (New York University, USA) Leticia Pinheiro (IRI/PUC-Rio, Brazil) Ana Maria Mustapic (Instituto Torcuato Di Tella, Argentina) Fernando Limongi (USP, CEBRAP, Brazil) Marcus Figueiredo (IESP/UERJ, Brazil) [email protected] Maria Rita Loureiro (FGV, Brazil) E DITORIA L B OARD Alcides da Costa Vaz (UnB, Brazil) - Andrew Hurrell (Oxford University, United Kingdom) - Argelina Cheibub Figueiredo (CEBRAP; IESP/UERJ, Brazil) - Candido
    [Show full text]
  • The Nature of the Brazilian Flag: an Environmental Turn Under Military Rule (1964-1985) Antoine Acker (University of Zurich, Switzerland)
    FORUM FOR INTER-AMERICAN RESEARCH (FIAR) VOL. 13.1 (MAR. 2020) 69-83 ISSN: 1867-1519 © forum for inter-american research The Nature of the Brazilian Flag: An Environmental Turn under Military Rule (1964-1985) ANTOINE ACKER (UNIVERSITY OF ZURICH, SWITZERLAND) Abstract Nature in Brazil has been the subject of debates, competing representations and historical ruptures. This article argues that the period of the military regime (1964-1985) was that of a shift in the delimitation between culture and nature, which became clear by means of media, artistic, intellectual and political representations. During the 1970s, in particular, the “nature” envisaged by the military regime, a hostile nature which the nation must conquer in order to exploit resources, gave way to a fragile nature. In diverse sectors of society, environmental protection came to be seen as necessary to preserve national identity and sovereignty. The debate about the future of the Amazon proved crucial in this transformation. This article analyzes the reasons for this change and gives some illustrations of it. It begins with a perspective of the different visions of nature that existed prior to the arrival of the military in power. Then, it explains how the developmentalist ideology of the military regime, based on an anthropocentric idea of nature, was challenged in the context of the rise of environmentalist discourse in the 1970s. Subsequently, it analyzes the transversal character that ecological thought managed to adopt in Brazilian society during these years. And finally, it explores the diversification of the environmental movement in the context of the transition towards democracy and its aftermaths.
    [Show full text]