AMICUS CURIAE IN NUMBERS. NOT A FRIEND OF THE COURT NIETHER A FRIEND OF PART?

Abstract

The figure of amicus curiae was received with great enthusiasm by the Brazilian constitutional jurisdiction because it represents a way to obtain democratic legitimacy and cognitive expansion of the decisions submitted to the Supreme Court. The central objective of the present study concerns about the analysis of the practical effectiveness of the amicus curiae in the construction of interpretations of the Brazilian Supreme Court through the argumentative approach. In this way, the specific objectives are (i) the quantitative demonstration of the enthusiasm for the amicus curiae figure, through the mensuration of the significant growth of this participation from 1990 to 2015, and (ii) the investigation of relation between this increase in participation and the effective opening to the inflow of information from the friends of the Court, through the express consideration of amici curiae's arguments in decisions handed down by Supremo Tribunal Federal. In order to test the effectiveness of these functions, the essay aims to investigate to what extent the arguments of the amici curiae are considered in Supreme Court decisions, through an empirical analysis of the judgments in which the concentrated control processes there was participation of amicus curiae . The results show that most of the arguments brought by the amici curiae are not mentioned by the members of the Court in their votes, since only 30% of the judgments expressed no such consideration, confirming the hypothesis that the effectiveness of the incorporation of arguments and interpretations is less than what is expected from the theories of this procedural figure.