Superior Courts as Supreme Courts and the Paradoxes of the Precedent-Based Model in Brazilian Law
Murillo Gutier | murillo@gutier.adv.br
Abstract
This article critically examines the Supreme Court model proposed by Daniel Mitidiero, Luiz Guilherme Marinoni, and Hermes Zaneti Jr. within the context of Brazilian procedural law. The model advocates for transforming the Federal Supreme Court (STF) and the Superior Court of Justice (STJ) into Supreme Courts endowed with the power to issue binding precedents of a prospective nature. Drawing upon the philosophical critique of Eduardo José da Fonseca Costa and the democratic procedural theory of Rosemiro Pereira Leal, the article identifies six internal paradoxes that undermine the model’s sustainability in light of the Federal Constitution of 1988: (1) incompatibility with the constitutional function of the Superior Courts as appellate review tribunals; (2) the establishment of an interpretive monopoly as an instrument of normative domination; (3) the reduction of judicial proceedings to instruments of authority rather than democracy; (4) the treatment of the concrete case as a mere pretext for the creation of abstract norms; (5) the impossibility of reviewing precedents and the consequent petrification of law; and (6) the legislative importation of a cultural and juridical “mode of being” that Brazil does not yet possess. The article concludes that a constitutionally adequate theory of precedents must be grounded in democratic legitimacy, procedural participation, and respect for the concrete case, rather than in the vertical imposition of norms detached from social and historical reality.
Keywords: Supreme Courts; Binding Precedents; Democratic Legitimacy; Brazilian Procedural Law; Constitutional Function; Paradoxes of the Precedent Model.
Between the Lighthouse and the Labyrinth - Murillo Gutier (39 downloads )

