| Document Name: | Constitution of the Federative Republic of Brazil |
| System: | Federal presidential constitutional republic |
| Federalism: | Federation |
| Chambers: | Bicameral: Chamber of Deputies and Federal Senate |
| Branches: | Three (executive, legislature, judiciary) |
| Executive: | President of the Republic |
| Jurisdiction: | Federative Republic of Brazil |
| Courts: | Supreme Federal Court |
| Electoral College: | No |
| Signers: | Constituent Assembly |
| Orig Lang Code: | pt |
| Title Orig: | Constituição da República Federativa do Brasil |
| Supersedes: | 1967 Constitution of Brazil |
The Constitution of the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: Constituição da República Federativa do Brasil) is the supreme law of Brazil. It is the foundation and source of the legal authority underlying the existence of Brazil and the federal government of Brazil. It replaced the autocratic 1967 constitution capping 21 years of military dictatorship and establishing Brazil's 6th republic, also known as the New Republic (Nova República). Made in the light of the Brazilian transition to democracy, it resignified the role of the state in the citizens' lives, providing a vast system of human and individual rights protection, social welfare, and democratic tools.
The 1988 Brazilian Constitution is the seventh enacted since the country's independence in 1822, and the sixth since the proclamation of the republic in 1889.[1] [2] It was promulgated on 5 October 1988, after a two-year process in which it was written from scratch. It was revised in 2017. [3] [4] [5] [6]
Another criticism is that the 1988 Federal Constitution reproduces a model of state capitalism, expanding state monopolies and regulations, which allowed the Brazilian state, in 2017, to have stakes in more than 650 companies, involved in one-third of the national GDP. This model also created restrictions for the performance of foreign companies in several fields with harmful consequences for the country's growth. In the view of some scholars, this economic model favors patrimonialism and corruption.[7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13]
The Constitution is also responsible for creating a slow judicial system. Brazil has the 30th slowest judiciary among 133 countries, according to the World Bank. This has caused the judiciary to use provisional arrests as an advance of the sentence. In 2015 more than 40% of prisoners in Brazil were provisional.[14] [15] [16] [17]
A World Bank study criticized the 1988 Federal Constitution for extending the privileges of civil servants, aggravating income inequality in Brazil. Remuneration and retirement are disproportionately high according to studies. In 2015, the federal government's deficit associated with the retirement of the approximately 1 million government employees was greater than the total registered with 33 million private pensioners. For the World Bank, civil servants are among the richest fifth of the Brazilian population. For Roberto Brant, the Federal Constitution was captured by groups of civil servants in 1988. Philosopher Fernando Schüler maintains that Brazil went against the grain in the 1980s: "While the world tried to adjust the State to globalization and modernize public management, Brazil bet on a super bureaucratic state in the 1988 Constitution. We offer rigid stability in the employment for civil servants, we mix careers of State with common careers of the public service, we create the law of biddings, we cast the budgets and we eliminate any space for the meritocracy in the public area." For jurist Modesto Carvalhosa, only a new "principiological" constitution would end the privileges of the 1988 Constitution.[18] [19] [20] [21] [22] [23] [24]
The Federal Constitution of 1988 is also criticized for having adopted one of the broadest Special Forums in the world, which jurists argue encourage corruption. A quarter of the actions with a Privileged Forum take more than ten years to be judged. The Supreme Federal Court takes 1,300 days to judge criminal actions by persons with privileged jurisdiction. Between 2001 and 2017, 200 actions involving the Privileged Forum expired.[25] [26] [27] [28] [29] [30]
Also criticized is the requirement of unappealable transit for the execution of the sentence. For Judge Sergio Moro, waiting for the final judgment will contribute to impunity. According to Minister Teori Zavascki after confirming a second sentence, one could no longer speak of the principle of non-culpability, since "the exceptional remedies, for the superimposition courts, do not boast the ability to review facts and evidence".
In the electoral aspect, the Constitution adopted the mandatory vote. Among the 15 largest economies in the world, Brazil is the only country in which voting is mandatory. A 2014 survey showed that the mandatory vote is rejected by 61% of Brazilians. Some question whether it is democratic to compel people to vote.[31] [32] [33] [34]
The Constitution adopted the social democratic model of State organization, as defined by the columnist for the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo Luiz Sérgio Henriques. For professor and lawyer Marco Aurélio Marrafon, president of the Brazilian Academy of Constitutional Law, the 1988 Brazilian Magna Carta organized the State according to the Welfare State model, in which it is intended to reconcile "the liberal component of preservation of individual rights and limitation of state power, with direct economic intervention and the promotion of public policies, in order to redistribute resources and reduce social inequalities." In order to finance the Welfare State, it was necessary to raise the tax burden, which went from 23.4% of GDP in 1988, to 33.6% of GDP in 2005, and to link budget revenues. Thus, the Union reached 93% of mandatory spending in 2017, decreasing the room for maneuver by the government and affecting investments. This option is criticized by some.[35] [36] [37] [38] [39] [40] [41] [42] [43] [44]
Some criticize an alleged excessive power granted to the Order of Attorneys of Brazil by the Constitution. Brazilian philosopher and journalist Hélio Schwartsman considers that the 1988 Constitution conferred "disproportionate powers" on lawyers such as "appointing judges, writing laws, proposing direct actions of unconstitutionality, defining who can and who cannot become a lawyer". Roberto Campos, economist, ex-senator and Minister of Planning of Brazil in the early years of the military dictatorship noted that "The OAB has achieved the feat of being mentioned three times in what he defines as the "besteirol Constitution" of 1988. According to him, "it's perhaps the only case in the world where a club of professionals has enshrined the constitutional text."[45] [46]
The Constitution of Brazil is composed of nine titles, subsequently divided into chapters and then articles. The articles are in turn divided into short clauses called incisos (indicated by Roman numerals) and parágrafos (indicated by numbers followed by §). The Constitution refers to the country as "the Union".
The preamble to the Federal Constitution is a brief introductory statement that sets out the guiding purpose and principles of the document. The text reads:[47] [48]
Title 1 is devoted to the fundamental principles of the Union. It describes the States, the municipalities and the Federal District as the indissoluble constituents of the Union. It also establishes three independent, harmonic government branches: the Executive, the Legislative and the Judiciary, and lists the nation's main goals.
One of the most important excerpts from this title is in Article 1, single paragraph, stating:
Title 2 states the Fundamental Safeguards.[49] It ensures basic rights to all citizens and foreigners residing in the Country, prohibits capital punishment, defines citizenship requirements, political rights, among other regulations.
Title 3 regulates the state organization. It establishes Brasília as the nation's capital, describes the rights and duties of the states, the municipalities, as well rules for the public staff.
Title 4 is about the branches of government. It describes the attributes for every government branch, and the rules for amendments to the Constitution as well.
Title 5 regulates the defense of the State and its democratic institutions. It rules the deployment of the armed forces, the national security baselines, and declaration of state of emergency.
Title 6 comprises taxation and the nation's budget. It disposes on budget distribution among the Union's components and their competencies, and the nation's budget.
Title 7 rules the economic activities in the country, the agricultural and urban policies, as well the state monopolies.
Title 8 is about the social order. It establishes the Social Security system, the Public Health system, the Public Pension system, among regulations concerning education, culture, science and technology, and sports policies.
Title 9 encompasses general constitutional dispositions. Among those, there are sparse regulations, as well as transitional dispositions.