O Supremo Tribunal Federal e os usos jurídico-políticos: uma análise do discurso do “julgamento histórico” do HC no 4.718

Abstract

This paper aims to analyze, through Semiolinguistic Discourse Analysis, the legal-political discourse of the votes of the justices of the Supreme Court in the "historic trial" of Habeas Corpus no. 4781 of 1919, filed by the then candidate for the Presidency of the Republic Ruy Barbosa and some of his supporters in the State of Bahia, in order to preventively ensure the Right of Assembly and Free Expression of Thought in the final stretch of that electoral campaign. The analysis is based especially on the vote of the reporting justice, since the other votes are not available for analysis. The decision shows that there was ample evidence indicating that the authorities of the Executive Power of the State of Bahia, in particular the Governor through its Chief of Police, would be preventing or causing serious constraints to the right of assembly of the opposition political group. The court's decision was to recognise the Supreme Court's original jurisdiction in the case, and established the thesis that the right to free assembly cannot, in any way, suffer direct interference by the police, even in determining the places where political meetings are to be held.  This observation led us to reflect on the extent to which the Justices of the Brazilian Supreme Court, as members of the Brazilian legal world, as a field structured on the basis of antagonistic and often paradoxical opinions, and in this sense, a legal-procedural system that does not lead to the formation of consensus, had since then already reproduced this culture in the decision under analysis.