Public Civil Procedure in Brazil: Formation of the Institution, Mechanisms of Functioning, and Analysis of Practice

Abstract

This article comprehensively examines the institution of Public Civil Procedure (PCP) in Brazil. Through a multidimensional analysis, the article addresses the following key issues: it identifies the institutional causes and ways of evolution of the Brazilian PCP, which arose from the contradiction between the need to protect public interests and the traditional mechanism of civil proceedings; it reveals its institutional content and regulatory structure, the core of which is the protection of three types of interests (public, collective and homogeneous individual); it shows its real effectiveness as the main channel of Brazilian public lawsuits, as well as such problems in practice as a conflict of competence with a direct claim for recognition of unconstitutionality, excessive use of lawsuits and politicisation. The study shows that this institution has effectively responded to the structural contradiction between the protection of public interests and the traditional model of judicial proceedings during the period of social transformation and has become the main instrument of public litigation in Brazil, but it faces real difficulties such as conflict of competence and abuse of procedural means. Brazil’s experience and lessons can serve as a comparative legal guideline for developing countries when creating or improving their own public action systems.