ABSTRACT CONSTITUTIONAL CONTROL AS AN INSTRUMENT OF STATE GOVERNANCE: REVIEWING THE HISTORY OF ABSTRACT ACTIONS THROUGH “REPRESENTAÇÃO INTERVENTIVA” (INTERVENTIVE REPRESENTATION)

Prevailing doctrine does not deem the interventive representation, included in the 1946 Federal Constitution, capable of instituting abstract control in Brazil, for it supposedly does not have an erga omnes effect and its scope is limited to the judicialization of federative conflicts. Arguing in the opposite direction, by defending that it was the RP, and not the Representation of Unconstitutionality, that has inaugurated abstract control, this article attempts to demonstrate that the prevailing reading is anachronistic and, thus, erases the main feature of this manner of control: the shift, by the Judiciary, away from the protection of individual rights in face of the concrete case towards its participation in the governing of the State, i.e., the organization of Powers, the Federation and the Administration. The conclusions are based on the empirical analysis of decisions published by the Federal Supreme Court in its official journals, through four different time periods (1957-1964; 1985-1989; 1995-2004; 2012-2016), arranged according to the type of action, its object, the origin of the norm and the result of the trial.

Keywords
Interventive representation; constitutional review; abstract review; History and memory; constitutional jurisdiction