Throughout 2003, the Brazilian Federal Government pursued the reform of the Brazilian judicial system. The National Congress outlined two key objectives for the debate: accelerating the speed at which the judiciary reached its decisions, and improving both the technical level and the ethical standard of the judgments rendered.
To achieve these objectives, a number of key areas for reform were raised. Chief among these was the use of the sumula vinculante, a binding statement of the federal Supreme Court – or Supremo Tribunal Federal (STF). This instrument allows the STF to issue a statement that will have a binding effect on all other levels of the judiciary in order to avoid the multiplication of lawsuits over subjects that have already been decided by the highest court. In order to issue a binding statement on any specific constitutional or legal issue, the relevant subject has to be the subject of several discussions and has to be approved by twothirds of the members of the STF.
