Princípio da prioridade absoluta dos direitos da criança e do adolescente nas decisões do Supremo Tribunal Federal entre 2020 e 2024

Abstract

This article aims to analyze how the constitutional principle of the absolute priority of the children’s and adolescent’s rights, enshrined in article 227 of Brazil’s 1988 Federal Constitution and regulated by article 4 of the Child and Adolescent Statute, is applied in the jurisprudence of the Supreme Federal Court (STF). The research is grounded in the paradigm of full protection, which assigns to the family, society, and the State a shared duty to guarantee, with urgency and precedence, the effective realization of children’s and adolescents’ rights across all spheres of social life. The study begins by tracing the constitutionalization of children’s rights and the overcoming of the former “irregular situation” doctrine, highlighting the emergence of a normative framework centered on human dignity and the prioritization of childhood and adolescence. It then presents a jurisprudential analysis of STF decisions issued between 2020 and 2024, compared with the mapping conducted by Instituto Alana for the period from 1988 to 2019. The findings show that the Court has increasingly recognized the principle of absolute priority as both an interpretive guideline and a criterion for balancing fundamental rights. Nevertheless, the study concludes that, although the STF has made significant progress in implementing this principle, persistent challenges remain regarding its practical enforcement. Ensuring its full effectiveness as a binding constitutional command and as a genuine instrument for the comprehensive protection of children and adolescents continues to be an ongoing task.