Brazilian Judicial Audiences and Reputation: Challenges to Build an Institutional Identity

Abstract

Since theoric reference of the Judicial Reputation Theory developed by Nuno Garoupa and Tom Ginsburg and by brazilian judicial data analysis released by the National Council of Justice (Conselho Nacional de Justica - CNJ), FGV DIREITO SP and FGV DIREITO RIO, this paper concerns about the brazilian justice reputational building ways. While the ordinary branches of brazilian judiciary worries about a collective reputation building, the Brazilian Supreme Court is composed by eleven justices engaged to individual reputation building race at the cost of the collective reputation which result into a lack of institutional identity and under the society's disapproval. The research hypothesis is based on the recognition that even if the judiciary as a whole is guided by a strong institutional influence aimed at promoting a collective reputation, in the case of the Brazilian Supreme Court both the organizational structure and the individual performance of ministers suggests another approach. We suggest that there is a prevalence of individual reputation often at the expense of the collective reputation. We will see that the procedural reforms of the last sixteen years also intensified the process of building a uniform and collectivization of decisions and judicial reputation, but it had no significant impact on the top body - Brazilian Supreme Court, which differs with its own procedural rules.