How dictatorships are (re)born
Rather than a historical investigation on the subject, this is a point of view about what is happening in Brazil right now
Our democracy is just a teenager and, just like Justin Bieber, we're already sick of it.
Last week the president of the supreme court, Joaquim Barbosa, in a speech for college students, criticized the brazilian political parties and the congress, and heated - an already very hot discussion - about the separation of powers in Brazil and the role of each branch of government in a democracy.
Joaquim Barbosa became sort of famous last year, after the biggest corruption scandal in our recent history, and since then everything that he says is both acclaimed by the people and trashed by most of the politicians. If Brazil were Metropolis, he would be the Black Knight.
This political crisis weakened the reputation of the congress and the Supreme Court is taking advantage of this to claim powers that are, by constitution, of the congress. One example of this is that the Supreme Court is able to judge, without submitting to the congress, the constitutionality of a law.
I see too big problems here: one that to make laws is not the role of the Judiciary and other that, unlike the Congress or the House of Representatives, the judges of the supreme court are not directly elected, which means that we can't influence on their nomination.
It is true that the congress have to be reformulated in Brazil, but this is our duty as voters. We have the power, and the responsibility, on the next election, to show that we are sick of all this corruption. But what is happening is that we are eager to ask somebody else to do it.
I am not a historian, but this seems to me the exact inverse of what a democracy is. And I don’t know if a dictatorship arise from this in Brazil, but I'm sure that we are just too lazy to fight against it!
