Abstract
This article seeks to understand, from a socio-political perspective, the fundamentals of the decisions taken by José Sarney, then president of the Republic, and by the Supreme Court regarding the effectiveness of the rule that, in the 1988 Constitution, determined the limitation of real interest at 12% per year. Based on thesis developed by Karl Polanyi, Pierre Rosanvallon and Michel Foucault, the hypothesis of this work is that the interpretation given to paragraph 3 of article 192 of the 1988 Constitution did not contradict the truth of the market, which overshadowed politics and law and saw in the limitation of interest rates an affront to its own laws and, with that, the outbreak of economic chaos. The article will analyze the trajectory of the approval of the norm in the Constituent Assembly until José Sarney’s decision, supported by the opinion of the General Consultant of the Republic, and the judgment of Direct Action by the Declaration of Unconstitutionality filed by the Democratic Labor Party. The study will conclude that, in the case, José Sarney and the Supreme Court acted as guardians of a natural economic order that refuses politics and does not need any sovereign.
1988 Constitution; real interest; José Sarney; Supreme Court; free market