A atuação do Supremo Tribunal na crise sanitária de covid-19: do ativismo ao diálogo institucional

Abstract

Through bibliographical and empirical research, the work was dedicated to investigating an answer to the following problem: was there a regular and dialogical exercise of judicial control by the Federal Supreme Court (STF) of the actions and omissions of the Brazilian federal executive power in dealing with the covid-19 pandemic, in the period from July 2020 to March 2023? Based on the hypothesis that the Court has acted properly in controlling the federal government, but without institutional dialog, this research gathered information on the full content of the Brazilian Supreme Court's rulings on the control of measures to combat the pandemic. In order to identify theoretical parameters for analyzing the data, support was sought from the research carried out by Ginsburg and Versteeg (2020) on judicial action in the context of emergency powers; by Toledo (2022a), on judicial activism and its measurement from an argumentative perspective based on the application of Alexy's Theory of Legal Argumentation (2017); and Bateup (2006), Silveira (2016) and Souza (2022) on the adoption of Institutional Dialogue Theories as a way of democratizing constitutional interpretation by incorporating the other powers and society into this discussion, supplanting the possibility of judicial activism. Finally, it was concluded that, throughout the period studied, the Judiciary's control over the actions and omissions of the Executive in Brazil was maintained, based on the Court's discursively reasoned action, without the practice of judicial activism. However, there was no institutional dialog in the relationship between these two powers.