The Constitution's Twenty Years of Existence: A Hermeneutic Exploration of The Dilemmas Over the Rendering of the Constitutional Text

Abstract

The present reflections aim at discussing the problem of the rendering of the constitution considering the phenomenology of hermeneutics (basically, the study of different possible interpretations of texts). Thus, the limitations of the interpretative formula existing in the traditional juridical dogmatics will be established, in search of a "clearing" (Lichtung) in which the Constitution maybe seen as a phenomenon. This paper also aims at looking into the inevitable increase of tension between - legislation-jurisdiction inside the Rule of Law in order to show the outlines of a fundamental constitutional jurisdiction. This perspective, however, will not be approached as an honor to irresponsible judicial pragmatism, but as a necessary intervention of the Courts in politics once the 1988 Constitution has increased the hermeneutic dimension of the Law (adding a transforming function to it) including in its core the social demands of a practical world, which had been historically neglected by Law.