Súmula vinculante e repercussão geral : uma coexistência (des)necessária?

Abstract

One bias of judiciary crisis consists in a numerical issue: the high amount of cases in Brazilian courts. In this view, the reform conveyed by Constitutional Amendment 45/2004 tried to solve this problem through two mechanisms: “súmula vinculante” and “repercussão geral”, both anchored in the precedent’s theory, which have the common function to uniform law. The first one through legislative power conferred to the Supreme Court, and the second one by adding filters to select cases submitted to the Supreme Court more accurately. Initially, this study aimed to analyze descriptively both expedient in what concerns origin, concept, legal nature and procedure. Then, intended to examine both of them about the purpose to reduce cases multiplicity referred to the Supreme Court. For this analysis, data on the institutes was raised quantitatively and qualitatively, with constant use of statistical information available electronically by Supreme Court. Quantitatively, there was a significant decrease in “súmula vinculante” use in recent years, in inverse proportion to the general repercussion, which use increased in juridical community. Qualitatively, it was noticed a noncompliance of the requirements for “súmula vinculante” edition, thus leading to a loss of the legitimacy institute. Moreover, the general repercussion has demonstrated the collimated effectiveness achieved by applying the same legal reasoning to multiple identical and controversial cases, which therefore, might be associated with reduced demand in the Brazilian Supreme Court.