“Ministrocracy” and contradictory individual decisions in the Brazilian Federal Supreme Court

Abstract

The objective of the article is to investigate if the so-called “ministrocracy”, a category that aims at explaining the individual behavior of the Brazilian Supreme Court’s Justices as agents who block deliberations in the institution, have been harming the legitimacy of the most distinguished organ tasked with the interpretation of 1988 Constitution. This article investigates how the performance of Justice Dias Toffoli as the Chief Justice in the 2018-2020 period expanded the possibilities for contradictory individual rulings amongst the court’s members and highlighted the problem. The research was based on a methodology of analysis of direct and indirect sources, emphasizing the quantitative reports of the rulings and the decisions made by the Justices in the 2018-2020 period, all of them interpreted according to the literature. The article was divided in three parts. Firstly, there is an investigation on the normative modifications that took place in the 2000s that stimulated the usage of individual rulings by the Justices. Secondly, there is an analysis on how this phenomenon was fostered in the 2018-2020 presidency of the court, propelling intern decisional conflicts. Thirdly, there is an exploration of the potential modifications in the court’s intern regulations that could generate more decisional coherence to the Court’s case law. The conclusion was in the sense that the context of a provisional ruling’s warfare during Justice Dias Toffoli’s presidency amplified the “ministrocracy” and that modifications in the court’s intern regulations can stimulate the Court’s decisions en banc. The article’s contribution is related to focusing on a theme that is not deeply investigated but that has major pragmatic implications on judicial decision-making.