A corrupção e a atuação do judiciário federal 1991 – 2010

Abstract

Recent opinion polls in Brazil indicate that corruption and impunity are a major problem faced by the Brazilian society. This perception is fed back by the way the media has repercussions on the issue, exploring the events in the form of scandals. Beyond the negative aspect in the economy, the main consequence of the problem is the distrust generated in the population regarding democracy and its institutions, particularly those of the Legislature. There are three ways to empirically examine the question : a) by measuring the perception of the population through surveys (which has frequently been done ); b) by looking up the news stories produced by the media about the scandals and c) by investigating the response given by the courts in cases of corruption that are submitted to them. In this work we chose to explore the third way, starting from the assumption that the only way corruption can be effectively punished is after a final judgment (res judicata). Thus, in order to establish the scope of this study, we identified the criminal cases of corruption and civil claims of improper conduct judged by the five federal regional tribunals, the Superior Justice Tribunal and the Supreme Federal Tribunal from 1991 to 2010, investigating their temporal evolution, geographic distributions of origin and especially the final results of each of those actions according to their merit.