STATE COURTS AND COVID-19 POLICIES IN BRAZIL: How Did the Constitutional Review Take Place in the Lower-Level Judiciary?

Tribunais estaduais e políticas públicas de Covid-19 no Brasil: como se desenrolou a revisão constitucional no Judiciário estadual?

ABSTRACT

How do state courts in Brazil participate in the debate about Covid-19 policies? I argue that state courts had a role in making decisions on key policies when political actors couldn’t agree on how to handle the crisis. This paper compares its findings to what previous research has found on the role of the STF at the federal level. The results show that subnational institutions tried to use state courts to halt such policies in a similar way to what happened in the STF.

KEYWORDS:
Brazil; judicialization; subnational courts; Covid-19