Papers by Thomas Bustamante
International Journal of Constitutional Law
The American Journal of Comparative Law
Luís Roberto Barroso is one of the most influential legal scholars in Latin America. In this Arti... more Luís Roberto Barroso is one of the most influential legal scholars in Latin America. In this Article, we challenge his theory of constitutional legitimacy. Barroso believes that the legitimacy of constitutional adjudication stems from three different roles performed by constitutional courts. First, courts play a counter-majoritarian role; second, they have also a “representative role.” Although judges lack votes, they are better positioned than legislatures to interpret the will of the people because they are less vulnerable to partisan interests. Finally, courts can perform an “enlightened role”; they can break the political inertia and lead society to a better future. Although these powers should be used sparingly, courts can act as an enlightened vanguard and push history forward in the interests of the citizens. We argue that these roles are conceptually inconsistent and that the last two roles are not justified. We conclude, in addition, that Barroso’s theory of judicial legiti...
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2021
The negationist approach that the Brazilian government adopted to the pandemic of COVID-19 makes ... more The negationist approach that the Brazilian government adopted to the pandemic of COVID-19 makes the country an interesting case study of the consequences of politicized and populist responses to coronavirus, which we will summarize in this chapter. Bolsonaro’s underreach politics were based on a permanent strategy to expose the population to the virus in the hope of herd immunity, even after consensus had emerged on the inefficacy of such approach. We reconstruct, in this chapter, the central aspects of this response.
Revista Culturas Jurídicas, 2021
O artigo que se segue tem como objetivo fazer uma defesa da autonomia universitária como norma co... more O artigo que se segue tem como objetivo fazer uma defesa da autonomia universitária como norma constitutiva da democracia brasileira estabelecida com a Constituição de 1988. Para tanto, buscar-se-á demonstrar as conexões entre o sentido da autonomia universitária, a preservação da democracia e a garantia do federalismo. O método utilizado parte dos recentes ataques às universidades públicas brasileiras, comparando-o ao cenário internacional de ascensão autoritária. A autonomia financeira aparece como peça essencial: mostraremos que os recentes cortes orçamentários implicam em violação à lei e à Constituição de 1988. Os resultados de pesquisa indicam que restrições à autonomia universitária estão conectadas com políticas autoritárias. Conclui-se pela necessidade de um urgente resgate normativo da autonomia universitária no Brasil.
Routledge Handbook of Illiberalism, 2021
Revista Direito GV, 2018
Resumo O trabalho oferece um refinamento analítico-conceitual da noção de obiter dictum, a qual é... more Resumo O trabalho oferece um refinamento analítico-conceitual da noção de obiter dictum, a qual é entendida em uma acepção ampla e não essencialista, e uma reflexão sobre as suas circunstâncias de legitimidade, com vistas a identificar pronunciamentos judiciais abusivos, que realizam atos de fala capazes de ensejar efeitos sistêmicos indevidos ou danos à ordem jurídica. Ao final, oferece ainda uma tipologia dos obiter dicta ilegítimos e exemplos de cada uma das classes identificadas.
Law and Philosophy Library, 2016
xi.; 328 hal.; ill.; 19 c
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2012
The ad absurdum argument can be understood either as a strictly logical tool, which is equivalent... more The ad absurdum argument can be understood either as a strictly logical tool, which is equivalent to a proof by contradiction, or as a pragmatic argument about the desirability or undesirability of a given proposition. Yet, in legal reasoning lawyers tend to use it, at least in the vast majority of cases, only in the latter sense. The argumentum ad absurdum, as I will argue, can be classified as a special kind of pragmatic argument whose specific feature is its special argumentative strength in comparison with generic consequentialist argumentation. Once we are able to grant that premise, the paper intends to explain the most important rules of interpretation that may be used to determine the conditions under which the ad absurdum argument can be correctly deployed in legal reasoning.
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2010
In this essay I hold that there is a necessary inter-connection between principles, precedents an... more In this essay I hold that there is a necessary inter-connection between principles, precedents and analogy. Some adherence to precedents is necessary if balancing principles is conceived as more than ad hoc judgments. Principles, in turn, are required to support analogies between any cases. If we pay attention to the relationship between principles and precedents, we can offer the following account for the application of precedents: 1) On the one hand, precedents are, broadly speaking, rules, and all the rules can be described as an outcome of a balancing of principles. If we accept this proposition, then we can see that the link between a precedent and a novel case lies in the principles used in the justification of the previous decision. If in an unsettled case (A) one finds the same priority relations between principles that is found in a precedent (B), then we can extend the rule comprised in the precedent’s (B’s) ratio decidendi to decide the novel case (A). 2) On the other hand, precedents are of vital importance for reducing the indeterminacy of legal principles. Without a practice of following precedents, there can be no order among constitutional rights and the application of such rights cannot be rationally justified, for it becomes entirely arbitrary.With those considerations in mind, the author attempts to offer a simplified formal structure for the analogical application of legal precedents.
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2010
In this paper the author presupposes Robert Alexy’s classification of legal norms, which distingu... more In this paper the author presupposes Robert Alexy’s classification of legal norms, which distinguishes between principles and rules. It is held that the defeasibility is a feature of the latter type of norms, rather than the former. The defeasibility is defined as the admissibility of inserting new exceptions in the operative conditions of a norm. The author argues that a strict distinction between “principles” and “rules” is needed in order to understand how contra legem decisions can be justified in contemporary democratic states. If every rule can be described as the result of a balancing of legal principles undertaken by the legislator, and if it is not possible to foresee all the situations of application of every legal rule, then it is possible that a principle not previously considered by the legislator provides a reason for introducing an exception in a particular legal rule, without undermining its validity and general applicability. With those considerations in mind, the author attempts to develop a framework for analyzing contra legem decisions and to determine the argumentative steps that need to be taken when one is arguing against the wording of a statutory provision.
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2012
In this book review I discuss some of the central aspects of Scott Shapiro's book 'Legali... more In this book review I discuss some of the central aspects of Scott Shapiro's book 'Legality', and provide a critical view of the key submissions of the book. I hold that Shapiro's Planning Theory of Law is actually a new form of normative positivism, although it is unaware of this feature. I also claim that the Planning Theory is an interpretive theory of law in Dworkin's sense, and that it fails to construct a purely 'conceptual' theory of law. Nevertheless, in spite of some methodological problems, it is a very promising positivistic theory of law and legal reasoning.
Les Cahiers de droit, 2013
Dans le bref essai qui suit, l’auteur analyse le changement de perception de la Cour suprême fédé... more Dans le bref essai qui suit, l’auteur analyse le changement de perception de la Cour suprême fédérale du Brésil relativement à son propre rôle de « législateur négatif », au sens de la théorie kelsénienne de contrôle de la constitutionnalité des lois. Comme l’indique l’auteur, la Cour suprême fédérale a longtemps interprété le concept de « législateur négatif » comme un frein à toute forme d’activisme judiciaire. Conséquemment, elle ne se serait autorisée ni à créer des normes constitutionnelles de portée générale, ni à fonder une décision sur l’application directe de principes constitutionnels. Aujourd’hui, toutefois, le concept de « législateur négatif » paraît céder le pas à un modèle de contrôle de la constitutionnalité qui s’apparente au « droit-intégrité » de Dworkin, suivant lequel le juge participe à la construction du système juridique en s’appuyant sur les principes politiques et moraux qui sous-tendent la Constitution.
Isonomía - Revista de teoría y filosofía del derecho
Margaret Martin's Judging Positivism provides one of the best reconstructions and some of the mos... more Margaret Martin's Judging Positivism provides one of the best reconstructions and some of the most intriguing criticisms ever raised to Joseph Raz's influential jurisprudence. In one of the central moves of her argument, Martin challenges a core tenet of Raz's jurisprudence, which is the attempt to combine the preemption thesis with the normal justification thesis. While the former requires citizens and officials to exclude from deliberation any first-order reason for action a person may have, the latter invites considerations of legitimacy that cannot be assessed with independence from the first-order reasons the preemption thesis was meant to exclude. In this critical comment, I grant Martin's critique that these two theses cannot be accepted as conceptual claims. Nevertheless, I suggest that there remains some room to harmonize the two theses if they are accepted on normative grounds. If there is a good normative argument to treat legal reasons as an intermediate level of reasons for action, there may be some circumstantial reasons for treating institutional reasons as preemptive in the sense that Raz defends in his general theory of law.
Routledge Handbook of Law and the COVID-19 Pandemic, Mar 25, 2022
The Theory and Practice of Legislation, 2021
SSRN Electronic Journal
In this chapter I intend to answer Gerald Postema’s criticism against Ronald Dworkin’s Law’s Empi... more In this chapter I intend to answer Gerald Postema’s criticism against Ronald Dworkin’s Law’s Empire in his carefully-written essay “Protestant’ Interpretation and Social Practices.” Postema does not challenge Dworkin’s view that interpretation plays a constitutive role in the determination of the content of the law. Rather, his worry concerns the very concept of interpretation that Dworkin upholds. He argues that Dworkin’s account of legal interpretation is problematic because it allows the interpreter to impose his own view upon the practice, without the need of taking into account other citizens’ interpretations about the point of law. Given that the point of law is “logically independent” from legal practice, Dworkin’s advocacy of protestant interpretation is problematic. It is problematic, according to Postema, because it is insufficiently inter-subjective and insufficiently political. To respond to this criticism, I argue that it is possible to read Dworkin in a more generous way, so that the point of law is given by legal practice itself. Postema fails to see this because he does not pay enough attention to the historical dimension of interpretation, which is central to Dworkin’s legal-theoretical project. Once we consider this important feature of Dworkinian interpretivism, we can realize that it is similar to Postema’s more recent views about the principle of the Rule of Law.
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Papers by Thomas Bustamante