THE JUDICIAL BRANCH AS A (PRETTY) BAD POLITICAL REGULATOR: NOTES FROM BRAZIL

Abstract

Political regulation is a crucial area of democratic design. Considering the self-interest of legislators, the Judicial Branch appears to be an interesting actor to fulfill the impartiality requirements to ensure free and fair elections. Using the Brazilian experience, I show the role of Legislative Branch and judicial decisions on three major fields (party system, campaign financing, and electoral communication) after 1988 re-democratization. The analysis evidences the lousy performance of judicial electoral authority on improving electoral competition. Due to the peculiar conformation of Brazilian Electoral Justice, there is a concentration of election governance activities, and their decisions are bulwarked from judicial review. In this constitutional scenario, the judicial alternative is the wrong choice, and it is better to trust a pluralistic Parliament on the building of electoral rules.