Brazilian Supreme Court and the review of statutes on federal regulatory agencies

Abstract

A product of FGV Law School in Rio de Janeiro’s project “Regulation in Numbers”, this paper seeks to evaluate the role of the Supreme Court (STF) as a forum for debate on regulatory agencies in Brazil. The subject is analyzed in two distinct parts, concerning the perspectives of the claimants and the Supreme Court. In the first part, the paper asks (i) which actors seek to invalidate or impose limits on the powers of regulatory agencies through the abstract control of constitutionality of norms (“who postulates?”); (ii) what are their reasons (“why do they postulate?”) and (iii) when are these claims filed (“when do they postulate?”). The same questions are repeated in the second part: (i) how long do these claim take to be processed and deliberated (“when does the Court decide?”); (ii) what is examined and on what grounds does the Court decide (“what and how does the Court decide?”); and (i) what is the individual behavior of the Justices regarding these claims (“who and how do Justices decide?”). In order to answer these questions, the 18 claims filed before the Supreme Court and the respective decisions of the Court involving statutes about the legal regime of federal regulatory agencies between 1997 and 2018.

Keywords:
regulatory agencies; special legal regime; Supreme Court; control of constitutionality; constitutional jurisdiction