Electoral litigation in times of judicialization of politics: The dispute in the Supreme and the Supreme in the dispute

Abstract

The paper draws a panorama of the diffuse control of constitutionality in electoral matters based on decisions of the Federal Supreme Court in extraordinary appeals filed against the decisions of the Superior Electoral Court. After the analysis of the electoral procedural system, with emphasis on the broad devolution effect of the special electoral resource, it addresses the Brazilian electoral governance model in which the Higher Electoral Tribunal and the Federal Supreme Court are aligned in the application of the “electoral constitution”. After introducing the phenomenon of the judicialization of politics, the extraordinary resources and decisions of the Supreme Court are examined to map the entrance and exit profile and to identify the effective role of the Court in the electoral litigation.