Banca de QUALIFICAÇÃO: MARIA HELENA MARTINS ROCHA

Uma banca de QUALIFICAÇÃO de DOUTORADO foi cadastrada pelo programa.
STUDENT : MARIA HELENA MARTINS ROCHA
DATE: 12/11/2025
TIME: 14:00
LOCAL: Research Proposal Panel - Qualificação Doutorado - Maria Helena - UnB | Ingresso na Reunião | Micros
TITLE:

ASYNCHRONOUS COLLEGIALITY: how the Virtual Plenary reshapes deliberation in the Brazilian Federal Supreme Court

KEY WORDS:

Asynchronous collegiality. Online decision-making. Constitutional courts. Brazilian Federal Supreme Court (STF). Virtual Plenary (PV). Empirical research.

PAGES: 53
BIG AREA: Ciências Sociais Aplicadas
AREA: Direito
SUMMARY:

In recent years, the Brazilian Federal Supreme Court (STF) has intensified the use of virtual platforms in its decision-making processes, especially after the Covid-19 pandemic, when the need for social distancing served as justification for the universalisation of the Virtual Plenary (PV). This is an asynchronous platform in which any case submitted to the Court can be decided remotely, without the need for a live debate among the judges. The widespread adoption of this format, which appears to be unique among constitutional courts, has raised concerns regarding the deliberative legitimacy of decisions and the potential reduction of collegiality in the trials. Given this scenario, the present study proposes an investigation along four main lines. First, it aims to map the use of remote procedures in other constitutional courts selected through purposive sampling, to demonstrate that, despite virtualisation, synchronicity has remained a constant in the models adopted by these institutions. Second, it seeks to review the literature on collegiality as a central element of deliberations in constitutional courts, analyzing how this concept has been employed to assess rulings and what parameters have been used to evaluate the quality of collegial decisions. Third, it aims to categorize the main academic and political criticisms of the STF’s Virtual Plenary, questioning whether these objections stem from a theoretical gap in adapting traditional concepts of constitutional review to the virtual environment. Based on these inquiries, the research proceeds to the fourth phase, adopting an empirical approach that collects quantitative data on virtual sessions held between 2020 and 2025 and conducts semi-structured interviews with clerks who regularly operate within the Virtual Plenary. It is expected that the analysis of these datasets, through a grounded theory approach, will enable the construction of a theoretical framework specific to deliberations in the Virtual Plenary, including the possible use of artificial intelligence to automate some of its process, with categories that characterise what we preliminarily call asynchronous collegiality. By categorising the data, the research seeks to identify and establish specific parameters for collegial dynamics in the virtual environment, considering both its architecture and aspects that can be verified before, during and after the virtual collegial decisions. This theoretical proposal is expected to provide a more suitable lens for critically analyzing the STF’s Virtual Plenary and may have broader implications, contributing to debates on the adoption of asynchronous mechanisms in other collegial judicial bodies.

COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
Externa à Instituição - ANNA TSALAPATANIS - UCL
Presidente - 2332291 - ALEXANDRE ARAUJO COSTA
Interno - 2492387 - JULIANO ZAIDEN BENVINDO