"The use of Brazilian judicial precedent as an acquis management technique: an analysis of the processing of repetitive special appeals".
Judicial precedent; Acquis management; Superior Court of Justice; Repetitive special appeal
This paper conducted an analysis about the use of judicial precedent in the Brazilian legal system. For this purpose, the system of judicial precedents was analyzed from the perspective of comparative law, because when a research that seeks to analyze a legal institute of foreign origin is proposed, it is necessary to make a comparison. First a macrocomparison between common law and civil law traditions was performed in order to make a micro-comparison of the judicial precedent and the format of adoption of the institute in Brazil as a response to international dictates through a critical analysis of the institutional system possible. Focusing on the Brazilian legal system and from the perspective of the unity of law, the legislative option in the Code of Civil Procedure for systemic organicity through the standardization of decisions was analyzed, in which mass litigation is centralized. Through an analysis of repetitive special appeals, it was observed the existence of permanent centers in the STJ, such as the NUGEPNAC (Precedent and Class Action Management Center), which corroborates the understanding that the Brazilian judicial precedent is an institute used as a tool to manage the backlog, therefore, beyond a standardization of decisions, internal administrative procedures of Justice have been reformulated.