Democracia participativa e STF: limites e desafios das audiências públicas como promotoras de legitimação democrática

Abstract

This research is based on the idea that democracy can be defined as “government of the people”, which is understood as a regime of government where the people - in this case, the citizens - have sovereignty for making political decisions, through representation or directly, with constitutional and legal mechanisms, that guarantee popular participation in the public sphere, whether in the Executive, Legislative or Judiciary branches. From the Brazilian re-democratization process that took place in the 1980s and from the Constitution in 1988, there was a gradual expansion of the role of the Supreme Federal Court (STF) as the highest judicial body at the national level. In order to harmonize the powers conferred on the STF with democratic principles, it was possible that during the processes there was the exercise of participatory democracy through public hearings. On these occasions, civil society representatives (as specialists on technical issues) are given the opportunity to participate in the decision-making mechanism regarding matters of public interest, object of the presented judicial demands. This practice, together with the information and communication technologies currently made available to the constitutional body, would have the power to improve democratic participation in the Judiciary. Thus, the objective was to explore the problem of defining democracy; assess the development of democratic theories until the advent of participatory democracy; argue about the assumptions of the STF powers expansion regarding the concentrated control of constitutionality; discuss the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in the judicial environment; finally, to carry out a qualitative and quantitative study of the empirical operationalization of these through the political-legal techniques already made available to the various social actors involved in order to answer the following question: to what extent public hearings promoting democratic legitimation? The method of analysis is based on literature review and case study about Supreme Court Public Hearings. After analyzing these audiences, it was found that several dynamics of their realization must be changed in order to respond to the wishes of participatory democracy. The transformations permeate since the lack of transparency of the calling mechanisms and qualification criteria of the demonstrators; the lack of an effective constructive debate; and to the exaggerated individualism of the Ministers on several occasions. It was concluded that only after a change in conception can we speak, in fact, of a real democratic participation within the STF.