Federal Prosecution Office as a protection grid for brazilian democracy

Abstract

The Federal Constitution of 1988, in the caput of art. 127, confers the guardianship of the Brazilian democratic regime to the Public Prosecutor’s Office, an institution that has gained independence, a wide range of procedural action, and guarantees identical to those of the Judiciary, precisely in compliance with its constitutional mission. Since 2014, it has been possible to see demonstrations in Brazil that have antidemocratic agendas, in a clear subversion of the Federal Constitution and even the criminal law. The literature has indicated that authoritarian governments come to power in scenarios like this one, in a constant use of the democratic machine to implement their autocratic agendas. The objective here is to explore how the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office has behaved about the full compliance with the provisions of art. 127 of the Constitution, that is, what the institution has done with regard to the guardianship of democracy and the values of this regime that is threatened by the country’s current political situation. In addition, to understand how the members of the institution see this constitutional role. Regarding methodology, the research is qualitative in nature, empirical, qualitative in approach, and descriptive in design. The data was collected through interviews with semi-structured scripts, conducted with 50 public prosecutors at the three levels of the career. The data were analysed using content analysis and process-tracing methods. It was concluded that the MPF has failed to protect democracy, which is characterized by a lack of action by the institution.