THE JUDICIALIZATION WAS BROADCAST: the relationship between the media and the system of justice in Brazil

What is the role of the Justice System in the current process of institutional conflict in Brazil? Through a critical analysis of the concept of the judicialization of megapolitics, proposed by Ran Hirschl, we discuss the role of the Judiciary and Public Prosecutor’s Office in the current Brazilian political crisis. We call attention to the lack of clarity in Hirschl’s analysis about the fundamental problem of legitimacy in the conflict between governmental branches, and then we show how there is strong evidence in the Brazilian case that the mainstream media had the function of shifting legitimacy from the elected powers to the institutions of the System of Justice. To test our hypothesis, we compare the evolution of the popular approval of the main institutions of Brazilian democracy with the coverage that the quality newspapers Folha de S. Paulo, Estado de S. Paulo and Globo, and the television news program Jornal Nacional have dedicated to them from the beginning of 2014 until now, using data from the Manchetometro project. We conclude by suggesting improvements to the study of judicialization and particularly to the concept of the judicialization of the megapolitics.

Judicialization of politics; System of justice; Media; Public opinion; Attorney general