Um judiciário reformador de instituições na formação de políticas públicas: o caso Petrobrás e a Operação Lava Jato

Abstract

This dissertation investigates how Operation Car Wash was invested with a “judicialism of exception”, in which legal instruments were used for political purposes, impacting on the formation of public policies in the country since its inception. Qualitative research was carried out using doctrinal, jurisprudential and journalistic research. To this end, this study is structured in three chapters: the first deals with the roots of Brazil, a country founded on the basis of slavery and oligarchy, and then discusses the changing role of the state in the economy, with emphasis on the energy industry and Petrobras, an institution used since its foundation as a symbol of the economic model of the government in power. The second chapter focuses on Operation Car Wash and its consequences for Brazilian society. To this end, “Lava Jato” was analyzed from its institutional and media discourses, especially in relation to the judicialization of politics, understood from the concept of the judicial revolution of which the operation is a fundamental part. The third chapter discusses how the Judiciary has become a shaper of public policy since Operation Car Wash, intervening in decisions that fall within the competence of the Executive and Legislative branches. Bringing in the elements of the Carwash agenda, the dissertation warns of the risks of replacing democratic logic with judicial moralism and the consequences of this choice for the democratic rule of law, recalling the importance of balancing the three branches of government.