Something to Talk About: Applying the Unwritten Principle of Democracy to Secure a Constitutional Right to Access Government Information in Canada by Vincent Clayton Kazmierski A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Juridical Science Faculty of Law University of Toronto 2008 ABSTRACT In this thesis, I argue that the unwritten constitutional principle of democracy provides a foundation for the recognition of a constitutional right to access government information in Canada. More specifically, I argue that the principle of democracy can be used to fill the “access gap” in the written provisions of the Constitution. I begin by synthesizing the Supreme Court of Canada’s jurisprudence and the work of a number of academics to outline guidelines for the recognition of unwritten constitutional principles. I also attempt to construct a coherent account of the content and effect of the constitutional principle of democracy. I proceed to argue that recognition of a right of access to government information as part of the principle of democracy fits within the guidelines I identify as it is supported by “strong” pragmatic, historical and structural evidence. I then demonstrate how the constitutional right of access to government information may be applied to protect access to information in at least three different ways: through statutory interpretation, through the regulation of administrative discretion, and, in exceptional circumstances, through the invalidation of legislation. I rely on the work of a number of British scholars and on aspects of David Dyzenhaus’s conception of law as a culture of justification to help bridge the divide between the Supreme Court of Canada’s approach to the application of unwritten constitutional principles and the concerns raised by critics of that approach. I argue that the application of the principle of democracy respects the primary role of democratically elected representatives of the public, while establishing that the judiciary also has an important role to play in the identification and enforcement of fundamental values. I suggest that this judicial role can be effectively constrained through the guidelines sketched by the Supreme Court and more fully articulated in this thesis. Finally, I argue that the application of the principle of democracy to invalidate legislation can also be justified in exceptional circumstances where the legislation imposes substantial impediments on fundamental aspects of the democratic process. In such cases, the principle of parliamentary supremacy is properly counterbalanced by the principle of democracy.

Something to Talk About: Applying the Unwritten Principle of Democracy to Secure a Constitutional Right to Access Government Information in Canada by Vincent Clayton Kazmierski A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Juridical Science Faculty of Law University of Toronto 2008 ABSTRACT In this thesis, I argue that the unwritten constitutional principle of democracy provides a foundation for the recognition of a constitutional right to access government information in Canada. More specifically, I argue that the principle of democracy can be used to fill the “access gap” in the written provisions of the Constitution. I begin by synthesizing the Supreme Court of Canada’s jurisprudence and the work of a number of academics to outline guidelines for the recognition of unwritten constitutional principles. I also attempt to construct a coherent account of the content and effect of the constitutional principle of democracy. I proceed to argue that recognition of a right of access to government information as part of the principle of democracy fits within the guidelines I identify as it is supported by “strong” pragmatic, historical and structural evidence. I then demonstrate how the constitutional right of access to government information may be applied to protect access to information in at least three different ways: through statutory interpretation, through the regulation of administrative discretion, and, in exceptional circumstances, through the invalidation of legislation. I rely on the work of a number of British scholars and on aspects of David Dyzenhaus’s conception of law as a culture of justification to help bridge the divide between the Supreme Court of Canada’s approach to the application of unwritten constitutional principles and the concerns raised by critics of that approach. I argue that the application of the principle of democracy respects the primary role of democratically elected representatives of the public, while establishing that the judiciary also has an important role to play in the identification and enforcement of fundamental values. I suggest that this judicial role can be effectively constrained through the guidelines sketched by the Supreme Court and more fully articulated in this thesis. Finally, I argue that the application of the principle of democracy to invalidate legislation can also be justified in exceptional circumstances where the legislation imposes substantial impediments on fundamental aspects of the democratic process. In such cases, the principle of parliamentary supremacy is properly counterbalanced by the principle of democracy.

Public-meaning originalists contend that judges properly interpret the Constitution only when they discover and apply its “original public meaning”—how the public understood the Constitution at the time it was adopted. Public-meaning originalism is premised on the “fixation thesis”—the meaning of any constitutional text is fixed when it is adopted. Concerns of the present, therefore, cannot affect constitutional meaning. Public meaning originalists acknowledge that the search for the fixed original meaning is not always successful, but it is always ontologically “there” to be found, even if epistemologically we sometimes fail to find it. The fixation thesis underwrites the powerful rhetoric of fidelity originalists deploy against nonoriginalists. Originalists insist that judges who interpret the Constitution using nonoriginalist approaches are “making up” constitutional meaning. But if original public meaning does not exist in the past as a fact which present interpreters can objectively retrieve, public-meaning originalists are equally guilty of “making it up.” The public-meaning enterprise thus rises or falls with its ontological claim that original public meaning is a fact in the past which anyone from the present can recover and apply without altering its objective character. Most public-meaning originalists have ignored the philosophical hermeneutic thesis that any investigation of the past is also shaped by the perspective of the interpreter in the present; the meaning of any text is mutually constituted by past and present. In this view, meaning does not exist in the past as a fact, but is created by the very interpretive effort to find it. Only two public-meaning originalists have defended the fixation thesis against this critique. Keith Whittington rejected it outright in his early work, while Lawrence Solum recently argued its compatibility with fixation. Both arguments fail. “Fixed constitutional meaning” and the other purported objectivities in which public-meaning originalists wrap their theory are no less touched by interpretive subjectivity than the theories new originalists attack. Like all human inquiries into proper action in particular situations, constitutional interpretation is necessarily affected by particularities of the judge, the issue before her, and their relation to constitutional history and contemporary constitutional imperatives. None of this is subject to adjudication by a priori rule or objective method, as public-meaning originalists imagine.No one is “faithfully” interpreting the Constitution in the way public-meaning originalists imagine. Everyone is doing the same interpretive thing, trying to connect the exigencies of the present with a document more than two centuries in force. The fixation thesis is false.

South African courts face a challenge in the application of intra and extra-texual aids in constitutional interpretation. Given that the 1993 and 1996 Constitutions have brought about a new era in the exercise of human rights, the challenge that the courts face is to strike a balance between individual and communitarian values. I have argued that the African concept of ubuntu which was included in the 1993 Constitution and impliedly included in the 1996 Constitution should be applied as a constitutional value and interpretive aid. This argument is fortified by the 1996 Constitution's frequent reference to human dignity, which is accorded full meaning by ubzmtu.mtu. This concept is further examined with a vie-..v to linking it vvith African jurisprudence which is characterised by the exercise of individual human rights within the context of a group. In conclusion proposals on the way forward in the application of ubuntu are / Law / LL.M.

This thesis challenges some of the current limits to the grounds for judicial review of legislation accepted by most Canadian jurists. More specifically, it makes a common law-based argument in favour of the priority over legislation of principles which are implied from the Imperial Constitution Acts 1867-1982 and which originally derive from the English constitution – namely implied constitutional principles. The argument faces two main interrelated legal objections: Parliamentary sovereignty and the Framers’ intentions. The first objection is rebutted by arguing that Parliamentary sovereignty possesses an ability to change in a way that can incorporate substantive legal limitations. The most prevalent common law-based theories of change to Parliamentary sovereignty suggest that the courts can authoritatively determine if implied constitutional principles can check legislation. The second objection is rebutted by reference to the notion of progressive interpretation as conceived under Hartian and Dworkinian theories of law and adjudication. Under these theories, progressive interpretation is an aspect of the courts’ best overall interpretation of the constitution, which includes implied constitutional principles. Such progressive interpretation can result in these principles constraining legislative authority. Justification of the progressive interpretation of implied constitutional principles can be based on the rule of law from which derive a number of these principles. One plausible conception of the Canadian rule of law is that it rejects the view that implied constitutional principles can prevail when in conflict with legislation. However, the better conception is that, as an attempt to adapt implied constitutional principles to relevant changes in society and to protect their underlying values, the judiciary should interpret these principles as capable of checking legislation to the extent that they form part of the core content of the rule of law. Such a conception and an operation of implied constitutional principles can properly be explained by Hartian or Dworkinian common law-based progressive interpretation of these principles and by their relationship with legislative authority.

Os direitos sociais são fruto das lutas dos indivíduos por melhores condições de trabalho e de vida ao longo dos séculos XVIII e XIX, embora os direitos mínimos dos trabalhadores somente tenham sido sistematicamente inseridos nas Constituições e albergados pelos diplomas internacionais ao no decorrer do século XX. No Brasil, os direitos fundamentais do trabalhador foram elencados na Constituição Federal de 1934 e, a partir de então, foram sendo ampliados até a Constituição Federal de 1988, nomeada de cidadã, que inaugurou um marco na constitucionalização desses direitos sociais, integrando-os efetivamente ao rol dos direitos fundamentais, conferindo-lhes aplicabilidade imediata e natureza de cláusulas pétreas. Toda essa sistemática traçada pelo legislador constituinte exige que os aplicadores do Direito tratem esses direitos trabalhistas como realmente fundamentais, inclusive no que tange às questões relativas à eficácia jurídica, efetividade e aplicabilidade. Ao lado do dilema da falta de efetividade das normas que estabelecem esses direitos, pela cultura de seu descumprimento reiterado pelos empregadores, existe outro problema igualmente grave: a ausência de implementação ou a implementação restritiva de vários direitos fundamentais trabalhistas, tanto pela ausência de leis infraconstitucionais que regulamentem as normas que os estatuem, quanto pela interpretação jurisdicional que lhes é conferida. Embora com alguns avanços no campo hermenêutico, a atuação do Poder Judiciário ainda tem sido insuficiente para a implementação plena dos direitos fundamentais sociais, tanto em virtude das resistências externas a uma postura mais ativa do Judiciário, quanto pela tendência de auto-restrição dos juízes em se aceitarem como órgãos legítimos para concretizar os direitos sociais esculpidos na Constituição. Ambos os problemas têm fulcro em uma concepção teórica restritiva de cidadania e, consequentemente, do exercício efetivo dos direitos fundamentais sociais pelos seus titulares, e em uma leitura desatualizada da teoria da separação dos poderes de Montesquieu, que desconsidera o Poder Judiciário como destinatário das normas de direitos fundamentais sociais. Sem embargo, a Constituição de 1988 adotou uma concepção de cidadania ampla, que pode ser denominada de cidadania social, pois o cidadão tem não apenas a prerrogativa de exercer os seus direitos políticos e civis, como também os seus direitos sociais, além de poder requerer ao Judiciário a implementação dos direitos cujo exercício se encontra limitado, inclusive pela interpretação involutiva dos dispositivos constitucionais, totalmente desvinculada da realidade social. O cidadão tem garantido constitucionalmente o acesso a uma ordem jurídica justa, no sentido do acesso aos tribunais, do exercício do direito de ação, com todas as garantias concernentes ao devido processo legal, e de uma prestação jurisdicional adequada e em tempo razoável que concretize os direitos reconhecidos em juízo. Para isso, o juiz deve se valer não apenas da utilização de mecanismos processuais adequados, mas também, em se tratando de pleitos que envolvam direitos fundamentais, da interpretação evolutiva, isto é, da atribuição de novos conteúdos à norma constitucional, sem a alteração do texto do dispositivo constitucional, em virtude de mudanças sócio-econômico-políticas não previstas pelo constituinte. Embora existam exemplos de decisões, majoritárias ou pontuais proferidas por juízes ou pelos Tribunais do Trabalho, em que se vislumbra a interpretação constitucional evolutiva de alguns direitos fundamentais trabalhistas, para a implementação plena desses direitos a atuação desse ramo especializado do Judiciário deve ser mais incisiva e abrangente. Dessa forma, o intento da presente tese é demonstrar que, para garantir a implementação efetiva de vários direitos dos trabalhadores estabelecidos nos artigos 7º a 11 da CF/88 e artigo 10 do ADCT, a Justiça do Trabalho deverá adotar uma hermenêutica jurisdicional pautada na interpretação evolutiva das normas constitucionais e na concepção ampliativa do exercício dos direitos fundamentais, fundada no princípio da cidadania social. / Social rights are the result of individuals\' struggles for better working and living conditions in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, although the basic rights of workers have only been systematically inserted in the Constitution and encompassed by international treaties, covenants and declarations in the twentieth century. In Brazil, the fundamental rights of workers were listed in the Constitution of 1934 and, thereafter, have been extended to the Federal Constitution of 1988, referred to as \"citizen\", which represented a milestone for the constitutionalization of social rights, integrating them effectively to the role of fundamental rights and giving them instant applicability and the quality of entrenched clauses. The same procedure drafted by the constitutional legislators requires that lawenforcers see these labor rights as something really fundamental, including subjects related to the legal effectiveness, efficacy and applicability. Next to the dilemma of lack of effectiveness of the rules that determine these rights, that is to say the employers culture of a repeated failure to comply with them, there is another equally serious problem: the lack of implementation or putting into effect, in a restrictive way, various fundamental labor rights, both because of the absence of infraconstitutional laws which regulate the rules that set them up, as well as the judicial interpretation they were given. Despite some advances in the hermeneutic field, the judiciary has still been not enough for the full implementation of fundamental social rights, both because of external opposition to a more active role of the judiciary, and by the self-restraint judges tendency to accept themselves as a right and proper means for achieving the social rights guaranteed by the Brazilian Constitution. Both problems have a restrictive theoretical fulcrum conception of citizenship and, consequently, the effective exercise of fundamental social rights by their holders, and an outdated interpretation of the Montesquieus theory of separation of powers, which disregards the judiciary as a recipient of the fundamental social rights standards. Nevertheless, the Constitution of 1988 adopted a broad conception of citizenship, which can be called \"social\" citizenship since citizens has not only the prerogative of exercising their civil and political rights, but also their social rights, as well as requesting the Judiciary for the implementation of rights which exercise is limited, even because of the involuting interpretation of constitutional provisions, totally divorced from social reality. Citizens have a constitutionally guaranteed access to a fair legal system in the sense of accessing courts, exercising the right of action, with all the guarantees pertaining to a due legal procedure and proper adjudication in a reasonable term that makes available the rights recognized in court. For that, judges must not only rely on the use of appropriate procedural mechanisms, but also, in case of claims involving fundamental rights, on the evolutionary interpretation, that is, assigning new content to the constitutional rules, without changing the text of the constitution because of socio-economic and political changes not foreseen by the constituent. Although there are examples of majoritarian or specific decisions taken by judges or by the Labor Courts, which are able to glimpse the evolving constitutional interpretation of some fundamental labor rights, for the full implementation of these rights, the performance of that specialized branch of the judiciary should be more incisive and comprehensive. Thus, the goal of this thesis is to demonstrate that to ensure the effective implementation of various workers\' rights, as laid down in Articles 7 to 11 and Article 10 of CF/88 ADCT, the Labor Court should adopt judicial hermeneutics guided by the evolving interpretation of constitutional rules and the ampliative conception of exercising fundamental rights, based on the principle of social citizenship.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-26T20:29:25Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Gisella Martignago.pdf: 803666 bytes, checksum: f3a567818abd21834decf7a1c4432f10 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009-07-01 / The Constitution of 1988 brought a series of changes in the field of the competence of the Supreme Court, creating new constitutional guarantees such as the warrant of injunction and the direct action of unconstitutionality by omission, extending the list of persons who has the right to bring direct action of unconstitutionality, among others. With the changing composition of Ministers in 2002 and the Constitutional Amendment No. 45, in 2004, a more activist attitude became clear from the part of the Members of the Supreme Court. Another point made in the study is a topic that has aroused great interest in national political-institutional, called judicialization of policy. In this context, the hypothesis under examination demonstrates that the Supreme Court, in an activist attitude, is redefining the limits of their competence. Several issues are raised when the Supreme Court exercises its role as guardian of the Constitution, so as to show its activist attitude / A Constituição de 1988 trouxe uma série de mudanças no campo de competência do Supremo Tribunal Federal, criando novas garantias constitucionais como mandado de injunção e ação direta de inconstitucionalidade por omissão, ampliando a relação de legitimados para propor ação direta de inconstitucionalidade, entre outros. Com a mudança da composição dos Ministros a partir de 2002 e a Emenda Constitucional n° 45, de 2004, ficou clara uma atuação mais ativista por parte dos integrantes do Supremo Tribunal Federal. Outro ponto apresentado no trabalho é um tema que tem despertado grande interesse na conjuntura política-institucional nacional, chamado de judicialização da política. Dessa feita, a hipótese sob análise no presente trabalho aponta que o Supremo Tribunal Federal, diante de uma postura ativista, vem redefinindo os limites de sua própria competência. Várias questões são levantadas no momento em que o Supremo Tribunal Federal exerce seu papel de guardião da Constituição, para assim comprovar a sua atitude ativista

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-26T20:29:52Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Marisa Alves Vilarino.pdf: 994810 bytes, checksum: 7695f0b534270ab2fe7bf21cafd5379e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009-08-18 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / The right to education until recently was limited to the analysis by the area scholars, especially by educators, and historians. Only recently become a subject of examination in the field of law. Thus, despite the importance of the subject, there are skill a little discussion about it, with problems in the interpretation and application of educational laws. The analysis of the Educational Law, the provisions governing the matter, in a systematic way, from the Federal Constitution, infra Laws, Ordinances and Resolutions of the Board of Education, to be understanding and development of this law. The allocation of constitutional powers legislative, materials or administrative, with regard to education, follows the federal pact, but the use of powers by the extreme absorbs almost completely the constitutional powers of other federal entities. While these great advances in the 1988 Constitution, including the competing powers is to achieve as much as possible the needed decentralization, that persists with regard to education, a tremendous power exercised by the Union, notably in the production of the laws. The examination of the constitutional texts, passing by the Constitution of the Empire, shows the origin of the centralization of power in the Union, centralizing tendency which remained throughout the Republic and not managed to rupture with of the Constitution of 1988. Not only the examination of constitutional texts but also of published laws by the Union and the rule of the Ministry of Education, agency of the Executive, reveal a history of invasion of power, which does not comply with the federal pact. Next to the invasion of powers by the Union, remains the omission of states and municipalities. It´s necessary a proper interpretation of the Constitution, using for both, the main existing methods of constitutional interpretation, to an effective implementation of the rule. The interpreter, as George BURDEAU, has thus a power equivalent to the authority which made the law. This statement is relevant, taking into account the number of interpreters, the approach made by Peter HÄBERLE of the education law. This research seeks to adduce evidence reflection on the origin and the influences received by the Brazilian educational law at the beginning of the independence of the country, showing the developments in constitutional texts and the importance of the text achieved in 1988, that trend has the right to education under international . Besides the necessary proposal for a redistribution of functions in the Brazilian Federation, with a new federative pact, is pressing the proper interpretation of constitutional text, and its up to the Union to establish the general law, and up to states and municipalities making rules more specific of their education systems in local and regional level / O direito à educação até há pouco tempo limitava-se à análise por estudiosos da área, notadamente pelos pedagogos, e por historiadores. Apenas recentemente passou a ser matéria de exame no campo do direito. Assim, não obstante a importância do tema, ainda há pouca reflexão acerca do assunto, ocorrendo problemas na interpretação e aplicação das normas educacionais. A análise do Direito Educacional, das disposições que regem a matéria, de modo sistemático, a partir da Constituição Federal, Leis Infraconstitucionais, Resoluções e Portarias do Conselho de Educação, importa para compreensão e desenvolvimento deste Direito. A atribuição de competências constitucionais legislativas e materiais ou administrativas, no tocante à educação, segue o pacto federativo; todavia, a utilização extrema das competências pela União absorve quase que por completo as competências constitucionais dos demais entes federados. Ainda que presentes grandes avanços na Constituição de 1988, inclusive, com as competências concorrentes, visando-se alcançar a tão necessária descentralização, persiste, no tocante à educação, um enorme poder exercido pela União, notadamente na produção legiferante. O exame dos textos constitucionais, passando pela Constituição do Império, demonstra a origem da centralização do poder na União, tendência centralizadora essa que se manteve por toda a República e que não conseguiu se romper com a Constituição Federal de 1988. Não apenas o exame dos textos constitucionais como também das legislações editadas pela União e das normas do Ministério da Educação, órgão do Poder Executivo, revelam um histórico de invasão de competências, o que não se coaduna com o pacto federativo. Ao lado da invasão de competências pela União, resta a omissão dos Estados e Municípios. É necessária uma interpretação adequada da Constituição Federal, utilizando-se, para tanto, dos principais métodos de interpretação constitucional existentes, com vistas a uma efetiva concretização da norma. O intérprete, como afirmou Georges BURDEAU , detém, assim, um poder equivalente ao da autoridade que fez a lei. Essa afirmação é relevante, levando-se em consideração a pluralidade de intérpretes, na abordagem feita por HÄBERLE , da norma educacional. A presente investigação busca aduzir elementos para reflexão sobre a origem e as influências recebidas pelo Direito Educacional Brasileiro no começo da independência do País, mostrando a evolução nos textos constitucionais e a importância alcançada no texto de 1988, que incorporou tendências do Direito à Educação do âmbito internacional. Além da necessária proposta de redistribuição de funções na Federação Brasileira, com um novo pacto federativo, é premente a adequada interpretação do texto constitucional, limitando-se a União a estabelecer as normas gerais, e cabendo aos Estados e Municípios a feitura das regras mais específicas dos respectivos sistemas de ensino, em nível regional e local

Este trabalho procura demonstrar a irracionalidade do controle e da interpretação constitucionais sem o stare decisis e a viabilidade e a necessidade de correção deste erro com o CPC/15. Analisa-se o anacronismo do CPC/73, completamente inadequado ao Estado Social Contemporâneo. Buzaid baseou-se em teorias vinculadas a uma visão do direito anterior a Kelsen e completamente incapazes de instrumentar políticas públicas e de lidar com um direito no qual as normas-regra convivem com as normas-princípio. Estudam-se as caraterísticas fundamentais da jurisdição constitucional de molde norte-americano e os problemas gerados pelo transplante institucional inadequado e a consequente violação dos níveis do ordenamento. Demonstra-se a essencialidade do stare decisis na jurisdição constitucional e a vinculação do controle e da interpretação constitucionais brasileiras, sob o CPC/73, a uma ultrapassada visão interpretativa das cortes superiores e do pretenso caráter declaratório das decisões judiciais. Demonstra-se a adequação do CPC/15 ao Estado Social Contemporâneo e à CRFB/88. Analisa-se a viabilidade e a necessidade de correção institucional no tratamento tanto do recurso extraordinário cível como da interpretação constitucional com o novo CPC. Demonstra-se a evolução interpretativa e processual inerente ao novo Código e o seu vínculo com o modelo de cortes supremas, que separa os níveis do ordenamento, corrigindo ao menos parte do arranjo institucional brasileiro e alterando profundamente a jurisdição constitucional do país. / This work seeks to demonstrate the irrationality of the Brazilian judicial review and constitutional interpretation without stare decisis and the necessity and feasibility of the correction of this mistake with the new Civilian Procedural Code of 2015. It analyzes the anachronism of the Civilian Procedural Code of 1973 (CPC/73), which was completely inadequate to the Welfare Stare. Buzaid was based in theories linked to conceptions of law previous to Kelsen, that were unable to establish public policies, as well as to deal with a law system where rules coexist with principles. The fundamental characteristics of the American judicial review of legislation and constitutional interpretation are studied, as well as the problems generated by the inadequate institutional transplant, causing the violation of the levels of the law system. This work demonstrates the essentiality of stare decisis in the constitutional jurisdiction and the link between the Brazilian judicial review and constitutional interpretation, under the CPC/73, to an outdated interpretative view of the function of the high courts and the pretended declaratory character of the judicial rulings. It proves the inadequacy of the CPC/73 to the Welfare State and to the Brazilian Constitution of 1988 (CRFB/88). It analysis the feasibility and the necessity of the institutional rectification of both the appeal to the Brazilian Supreme Court and the constitutional interpretation with the new Procedural Code. It demonstrates the interpretative and procedural evolution inherent to new Code and its link with the standard of Supreme Courts, that detach the different levels of the law system, rectifying at least part of the Brazilian institutional arrangement, changing considerably the country´s constitutional jurisdiction.

A supremacia da Constituição exige que a Suprema Corte tenha a última palavra sobre o sentido da Constituição? As Supremas Cortes norte-americana e brasileira afirmam que sim, respaldadas pelo conhecimento convencional. O objetivo principal da tese é demonstrar que esta assertiva é simplesmente equivocada. Será reconstruída a história da expansão do papel político do Judiciário, no âmbito da interpretação constitucional, com vistas a elucidar os seus verdadeiros pressupostos. A evolução do constitucionalismo brasileiro será analisada à luz de tais critérios, para que se possa perceber que só há no Brasil algo parecido com uma supremacia judicial após 1988. Após o exame das críticas institucionais e democráticas, será explorado o potencial da doutrina dos diálogos constitucionais para explicar a realidade das interações entre os Poderes Legislativo e Judiciário na interpretação constitucional, e para prover um suporte normativo que logre reconciliar o fenômeno da judicialização da política com a democracia no Brasil. / The supremacy clause requires that the Supreme Court shall have the last word on constitutional matters? The brazilian and north-american Supreme Courts confirms, endorsed by the traditional wisdom. The thesis aims proving that such statement is mistaken. The history of the global expansion of the judicial power, in refer to the constitutional intepretation, will be reconstructed, in order to clarify its real presuppositions. The brazilian constitutional evolution will be analyzed to prove that before 1988 there was no judicial supremacy in Brazil. After the analysis of the institutional and the democratic criticisms, the potencial of the constitutional dialogues doctrine will be explored to explain the interactions between the legislative and the judicial branches in constitutional interpretation, and its ability to provide a normative basis to reconcile the judicialization of politics with democracy in Brazil.