Mediendemokratie und Verfassungskontrolle à brasileira: Zur Bundesintervention in Rio de Janeiro

Abstract

During carnival 2018, Brazilian mass media reported about a dramatic increase of crime and violence in Rio de Janeiro. Former President Michel Temer thereupon signed a decree that announced a federal intervention into Rio de Janeiro´s competence for public security. Being an historic precedent since Brazil´s return to democracy, the decree subordinated this competence under the command of a general. The present analysis shows that the constitutionality of this extraordinary measure was not properly analyzed by the organs responsible for its control and that this failure can be attributed to media pressure from which the President and his supporters aptly knew to take advantage of. The federal intervention is therefore both an example for modern power politics under the conditions of a media democracy and another evidence for the country´s institutional and political crisis, which has aggravated since former President Dilma Rousseff´s ouster through a dubious impeachment process.