{"id":1195,"date":"2026-04-26T21:44:41","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T00:44:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/murillogutier.com.br\/?p=1195"},"modified":"2026-04-26T21:49:29","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T00:49:29","slug":"who-guards-the-constitution-the-fragmentation-of-decision-making-power-in-the-brazilian-supreme-federal-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/murillogutier.com.br\/?p=1195","title":{"rendered":"Who Guards the Constitution? The Fragmentation of Decision-Making Power in the Brazilian Supreme Federal Court"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><strong>Murillo Gutier<\/strong> | murillo@gutier.adv.br<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><strong>Abstract<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-justify\">This article investigates the <strong>fragmentation of decision-making power<\/strong> in the <strong>Brazilian Supreme Federal Court (STF)<\/strong>, demonstrating that the tribunal&#8217;s institutional practice has departed from the model of <strong>collegial deliberation<\/strong> envisioned by the 1988 Constitution. Drawing on the concepts of <strong>supremocracy<\/strong>, formulated by <strong>Oscar Vilhena Vieira<\/strong>, and <strong>ministrocracy<\/strong>, developed by <strong>Diego Werneck Arguelhes<\/strong> and <strong>Leandro Molhano Ribeiro<\/strong>, the study analyzes how <strong>monocratic decision-making<\/strong> \u2014 originally exceptional and precarious \u2014 has become an ordinary instrument of individualized <strong>constitutional adjudication<\/strong>. The article examines paradigmatic episodes of concentration of <strong>individual power<\/strong> among justices, addresses <strong>veto-player theory<\/strong> and the three dimensions of judicial power (to decide, to signal, and to set the agenda), and assesses the democratic consequences of this configuration, with emphasis on <strong>internal counter-majoritarianism<\/strong>, <strong>jurisprudential contingency<\/strong>, and the risk of <strong>institutional capture<\/strong>. The article proposes institutional reforms to rebalance the tension between <strong>individual<\/strong> and <strong>collective power<\/strong> in the court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-justify\"><strong>Keywords:<\/strong> supremocracy; ministrocracy; decision-making power; judicial review; monocratic decision; constitutional adjudication; collegial deliberation; individual power; Brazilian Supreme Federal Court; STF.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n<a  data-e-Disable-Page-Transition=\"true\" class=\"download-link\" title=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/murillogutier.com.br?download=1194&amp;tmstv=1777298183\" rel=\"nofollow\" id=\"download-link-1194\" data-redirect=\"false\" >\n\tWho Guards the Constitution? The Fragmentation of Decision-Making Power in the Brazilian Supreme Federal Court - Murillo Gutier\t(1 download\t)\n<\/a>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Murillo Gutier | murillo@gutier.adv.br Abstract This article investigates the fragmentation of decision-making power in the Brazilian Supreme Federal Court (STF), demonstrating that the tribunal&#8217;s institutional practice has departed from the model of collegial deliberation envisioned by the 1988 Constitution. Drawing on the concepts of supremocracy, formulated by Oscar Vilhena Vieira, and ministrocracy, developed by Diego &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/murillogutier.com.br\/?p=1195\" class=\"more-link\">Continue lendo<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Who Guards the Constitution? The Fragmentation of Decision-Making Power in the Brazilian Supreme Federal Court&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"saved_in_kubio":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[323,387,386,389,385,388,227,390,384,146,156,383],"class_list":["post-1195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-direito-constitucional","tag-brazilian-supreme-court-stf","tag-collegial-deliberation","tag-constitutional-adjudication","tag-decision-making-power","tag-individual-power","tag-judicial-review-en","tag-lingua-estrangeira","tag-ministrocracy","tag-monocratic-decision","tag-stf","tag-supremo-tribunal-federal","tag-supremocracy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/murillogutier.com.br\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/murillogutier.com.br\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/murillogutier.com.br\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murillogutier.com.br\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murillogutier.com.br\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1195"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/murillogutier.com.br\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1195\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1198,"href":"https:\/\/murillogutier.com.br\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1195\/revisions\/1198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/murillogutier.com.br\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murillogutier.com.br\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murillogutier.com.br\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}