IS IT POSSIBLE TO TALK ABOUT A NORMATIVE DIALOGICAL THEORY IN BRAZIL?

Abstract

The following paper aims to investigate the constitutional dialogues theory and its application in juridical and political Brazilian scenario. Therefore, we will move from the classification made by Christine Bateup, in her article called The Dialogic Promise, in which she splits the theory in the following manner: i) one side stands the empirical (or descriptive); ii) the other side stands the normative (or prescriptive). Then, the paper’s main goal is over this second dimension, as we will evaluate if it is available to build a Brazilian dialogical normative theory and how should proceed. Therefore, we will approach four steps that these build has to be concerned: a) structural asymmetry over social relations; b) linguistic pragmatics and discursive control (or if it is workable to make a connection between the citizen dialogue and the institutional dialogue); c) the overlap concerning the Brazilian Supreme Court functions, that operates simultaneously as a Constitutional Court, appealing court and first jurisdiction; d) “New Separation of Powers”. The hypothesis to be verified is about the possibility to build a Brazilian dialogical normative theory that surpasses in a satisfactory manner the four steps above, without falling into some incongruence or incompatibility. This theoretical pursuit is due the democratic legitimacy struggle seen through the institutions, since there is high political animosity. The reflection will be conclusive in order to approximate the insights of a normative dialogical theory and the institutions performance, especially the Brazilian Supreme Court, and will help to improve the institutional design after this theoretical effort.