ORIGENS DO BRAZILIAN HOME RULE NA CONSTITUIÇÃO DE 1988

UM CASO SINGULAR DE DIFUSÃO BOTTOM-UP A PARTIR DA TRADIÇÃO CONSTITUCIONAL SUL-RIO-GRANDENSE

Abstract

ABSTRACT: The article explores the issue of democratic experimentalism in Subnational Constitutional Law from the perspective of Comparative Law and Legal History. It examines cases of successful subnational constitutional democratic experimentalism in the US, Mexican and German constitutional experiences, based on the institutes of recall, amparo and Verfassungsbeschwerde, respectively. It adopts the historical-comparative methodology, documentary and bibliographical research. It explores horizontal and vertical, upward and downward diffusion processes of constitutional models engendered at the subnational level. It then examines the origins of home rule or local self-government in North American Constitutional Law, based on precedents from state supreme courts and the federal Supreme Court. It analyzes the reception of local self-government by the state Constitutional Law of Rio Grande do Sul, through its 1891 and 1892 constitutions, and its maintenance until the subnational constitution currently in force in that Brazilian state. Finally, it examines the process of federalization of the municipal organic laws system tested in the draft of the federal charter of 1934 and its succesful conclusion in 1988, constituting an important case of bottom-up diffusion, atypical in the tradition of Brazilian multilevel constitutionalism.