This is a public lecture by Professor Oscar Vilhena Vieira of Fundação Getúlio Vargas, São Paulo, Brazil.

In his new book, A Batalha dos Poderes (The Battle of the Powers), Professor Oscar Vilhena Vieira of Fundação Getúlio Vargas (São Paulo) analyses the constitutional malaise that took over Brazil since 2013, when a series of demonstrations revealed the fragilities of a political system that seemed consolidated. Disputed became more polarised and society more intolerant and conflictive. Politics and law increasingly became weapons against political adversaries. On one hand, there has been a clash between the presidencialismo de coalizão (coalition presidentialsism) which degenerated through time, and the legal institutions that implement the law, which became increasingly autonomous and ambitious. On the other hand, fundamental rights and a set of public policies, which had been positively transforming Brazilian society in the last decades, became increasingly threatened by a strong economic recession and a growing fiscal deficit, to a great extent linked to the expansion of privileges of a regressive nature.An attentive observer of the process of constitutionalisation of Brazilian life and a lucid critic of what he calls “Supremocracy”, Vilhena Vieira calls attention to the essential role played by the 1988 Constitution in the democratic game and to the need for all societal actors and political and institutional leaders to negotiate their conflicts according to the constitutional rules. Without this, he argues, Brazil will not escape the trap in which it got entangled in the past years.

 

Biography:

Oscar Vilhena Vieira is the dean of the School of Law of the Getulio Vargas Foundation (FGV/SP), where he teaches constitutional law, human rights, and law and development. Vieira was legal adviser for the Center for the Studies of Violence of the University of Sao Paulo and executive secretary of the Teotonio Vilela Commission for Human Rights. He served as state attorney for Sao Paulo and as executive secretary of the United Nations Latin American Institute in Brazil. In 2000, he founded and directed Conectas Human Rights and the Pro Bono Institute. He has written several books and academic articles on constitutional law, human rights, and law and development. Vieira is a member of several civil society organizations and academic programs advisory boards, including ANDI (National Agency for the Rights of Children), the FGV/SP Law School Global League (coresident), the Open Society Human Rights Initiative, and the Pro Bono Institute. Vieira has also worked as a pro bono lawyer in several human rights cases at the Brazilian supreme court.

Vieira has a BA in law from the Catholic University of Sao Paulo, an LLM from Columbia University, an MA and PhD in political science from the University of Sao Paulo, and did his post- doctoral studies at the Centre for Brazilian Studies at Oxford University.

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