The Unwritten Brazilian Constitution provides an overview of the leading cases on human rights of the Brazil Supreme Court. Readers will learn how human rights have been interpreted by the Court over the last 30 years to create an extensive system of judicial protection for fundamental rights.

The Unwritten Brazilian Constitution offers an unexplored topic outside Portuguese language: the leading cases on human rights in the Brazilian Supreme Court (Supremo Tribunal Federal – STF). The Brazilian Constitution of 1988 represents an institutional framework able to restructure the relationship between the powers after the military dictatorship. The constituents drafted the Brazilian Constitution in order to set an extensive system of judicial protection for fundamental rights, by means of several instruments that have strengthened access to the Judiciary. Because the Brazilian Constitution has an extensive list of fundamental rights, the STF was called to interpret them several times and it developed an unwritten understanding of these fundamental rights. These decisions are not available to the international community since they are not translated to English. Based on this gap, this original book illustrates the main rulings on human rights analyzed by great scholars in Brazil. The text presents a deep discussion regarding the characteristics of the cases and demonstrates how the STF has built the legal arguments to interpret the extension of the fundamental rights.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1 - The promises of the Brazilian Constitution of 1988 and the encounter between human rights and the Supreme Court

Rubens Becak and Jairo Lima

2 - The Brazilian Supreme Court and its Political Protagonism: an Overview of the STF and its Rise to Prominence in Brazilian Politics after 1988

Murilo Gaspardo

3 - Freedom of speech: Ellwanger case

Cristina Godoy Bernardo de Oliveira

4 – Asking “The Woman Question”: Judicial Recognition of the Right to Abortion in Brazil

Melina Girardi Fachin and Estefânia Maria de Queiroz Barboza

5 - Embryonic stem-cells research at the Brazilian Supreme Court: or how to decide not to decide

Lucas de Laurentiis

6 - Affirmative action at the Federal Supreme Court: the difficult promotion of racial equity in Brazil

Maria Paula Bucci Dallari

7 - Gay marriage: the role of the Brazilian Supreme Court in recognizing the right to same-sex civil unions

Fernando de Brito Alves

8 - Criminalization of homophobia – Trial at the Brazilian Supreme Court

Simone Cristine Araújo Lopes

9 - Political Citizenship: Constitutional Commitments and limits in the exercise of Brazilian Party Democracy

Orides Mezzaroba

10 - Corporate campaign donations

João Andrade Neto

11 - Home-schooling and religious education in Brazil

Nina Beatriz Stocco Ranieri

12 - High cost medicines and medical treatments in the Supremo Tribunal Federal (Brazilian Supreme Court)

Fernanda Duarte and Rafael Mário Iório Filho

13 - The presumption of innocence

José Duarte Neto

14 - The unconstitutional state of affairs in Brazil’s prisons

Emerson Ademir Borges de Oliveira

15 - Expanding constitutional dialogues in the judicial review: what are the institutional and behavioral challenges of the Brazilian Supreme Court as a human rights´ guardian?

Flavia Santiago Lima