O inquérito do infinito: a atuação do Supremo Tribunal Federal (STF) no contexto da crise democrática brasileira contemporânea

Abstract

This research analyzes the prominent role of the Brazilian Supreme Federal Court (STF) in the political arena in the face of far-right actions during the contemporary democratic crisis, focusing on the period between 2019 and 2023. The research begins from the premise that the STF is an intrinsically political institution, whose actions cannot be understood through the lens of supposed neutrality. The central question investigates whether the Court’s prominent role in inquiries into attacks on democratic institutions—specifically the Fake News Inquiry (No. 4781/2019), the Inquiry into Anti-Democratic Acts (No. 4828/2020), and the Inquiry into Digital Militias (No. 4874/2021) results from the politicization of justice or represents a legitimate defense of democracy. The theoretical framework draws on the literature on the crisis of liberal democracies in the 21st century, the global expansion of judicial power, and the analytical frameworks of the judicialization of politics, judicial activism, and the politicization of justice. It also incorporates an understanding of the rise of the “new right,” or contemporary far-right, with Bolsonarism as its Brazilian expression, characterized by the fusion of economic neoliberalism, moral conservatism, and anti-establishment rhetoric. For the empirical analysis, the research adopts a qualitative approach combining Content Analysis, Framing Analysis, and Discourse Analysis to examine the media framing of the Court’s actions in editorials from O Estado de S. Paulo and CartaCapital. The thesis advanced is that the STF is an institution whose political character is constitutive. In this sense, the research demonstrates that the Supreme Federal Court was not a passive actor, but a political-institutional agent that, in exercising its counter-majoritarian role, became enmeshed at the epicenter of the conflict—whether internally or in its interactions with other democratic branches and institutions. The Court, in this context, embodied the profound contradictions of a state of exception within the legal order.