The Influence of CJEU judgments on Brazilian courts

This paper aims at discussing the influence of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) case-law on Brazilian jurisprudence or legislation. First, it presents an overview of the Brazilian legal system as well as of the functioning of its Judiciary. Then the paper analyses the dialogue between Brazilian courts, mainly the Supreme Court, with supranational and foreign courts, indicating and discussing some cases and legislation where foreign jurisprudence is mentioned by Brazilian courts or laws. The paper concludes that there is no tradition in the Brazilian Judiciary of citing international and foreign jurisprudence. Moreover, although so far there has not been much influence of CJEU case-law on Brazilian jurisprudence or legislation, there is a great potential for CJEU influence on Brazilian Supreme and Superior courts jurisprudence as well as on the Brazilian national parliament decision-making process in the coming years, especially on issues relating to the Information Society.