Acessibilidade / Reportar erro

Intellectuals and reform of the judicial system: procedural law experts and reforms of Justice in Brazil

This paper seeks to demonstrate the political importance of Procedural Law to reforms of Brazil's Judicial system, as well as the political role played by Procedural Law experts in conceiving and conducting such reforms. It starts by examining the institutional characteristics of Brazil's system, seeing the unitary character of Procedural Law in Brazil as a comparative advantage over the fragmentation of bureaucratic agencies and professional careers in that system. It then takes a sociological approach to offer an explanation based on the existence of a legal field that is broader than the formal institutions of the judicial system. In this legal field, agents, identified as an intellectual elite, without necessarily occupying leading positions in the State framework, make use of their symbolical power to achieve privileged access to the political processes of reforming the judicial system.

judicial reform; procedural law; State reforms; intellectuals and politics; legislative process


Universidade de Brasília. Instituto de Ciência Política Instituto de Ciência Política, Universidade de Brasília, Campus Universitário Darcy Ribeiro - Gleba A Asa Norte, 70904-970 Brasília - DF Brasil, Tel.: (55 61) 3107-0777 , Cel.: (55 61) 3107 0780 - Brasília - DF - Brazil
E-mail: rbcp@unb.br