A desconhecida história do papel do Senado na representação interventiva (e seu legado ao controle abstrato de constitucionalidade)

Abstract

In the period of 1946-1965, the Federal Supreme Court could challenge the constitutionality of an act both in a judgment of a case or in a judgment of interventive action. After the trail, the court should send the decision to the Senate, in the first case, or to the Congress, in the second case, so they could suspend the execution of the act considered unconstitutional. That’s what the Constitution established and that’s what the doctrine used to say, and it still does. However, my research in official data base from the House of Representatives, from the Senate and from the Supreme Court revealed that the reality was quite different. The Senate assumed, with the Supreme Court support, the competence established to the Congress. Maybe this procedure, that lasted until 1967, can explain why, in the period of 1965-1975, the Supreme Court sent to the Senate the decisions from judgments in action of unconstitutionality, that, according to its own nature, should have already a general effect.