The Brazilian psychiatric reform is part of the construction of Brazil's democracy and the National Constitution of 1988 subscribes the politic and financial decentralization towards the nation's municipalities. This study reveals the country's democratization consequences in a Brazilian city in addition to the political characteristics of the psychiatric reform between 1989 until 2009. It is a qualitative research and aimed to analyze the democratic process of construction, implementation and applicability of a Municipal Law of Mental Health facing the contradictions of the Brazilian psychiatric reform processes, testing the hypothesis of necessity of a reformist mental health law at the municipal level. Methodology: interviews with managers (2), health workers (5) and users (2) involved with the mental health municipal policy; observations registered on a journal (18 hours divided in 6 alternate shifts); analysis of public domain documents. Data analysis: because of the hypothesis characteristics, the theoretical framework of historical and dialectical materialism was used in two chronological stages - from 1989 until 1996 (publication of the municipal law) and from 1996 until 2007 (implementation of services). Conclusions: the reformist municipal mental health law is necessary as a legal warrantee of rights, however, it only has meaning if summed to the history that has produced it; it is necessary to approach the inherent human condition of the social production to reproduce on the new health workers the meaning of existence of social movements such as the psychiatric reform.
democracy; Mental Health; public policies