Participation in the legislative process as a fundamental right: an analysis of e-democracy tools at the Brazilian National Congress

Abstract

The use of technology at the public administration is already a reality. In that way, a State Law nº12.527/2011 has contributed to guide the principles as main lines of information technology on the social and political development. The use of those tools may help with transparency on the government and make it easier to control the representatives by the people, among other uses. This work, however, focus precisely on the digital softwares developed by the Congress that allow the citizen to participate in the lawmaking process. Starting with data analysis offered by the Congress, it tries to understand how influential are those e-democracy tools on political persuasion. In other words, we analyze if the presence of the digital tools is mere formal, as it is obliged by the State Law, or if it guarantees participation of the masses on the control of public administration. The study has to steps, the first is descriptive, when we analyze the juridical digital tools already available that allow the participation of the citizen on the lawmaking process; the second step, we advocate for the existence of a fundamental right of public participation on the lawmaking process, fruit of a constitutional reading and interpretation other state laws.