Far-right populism has been posing risks to democracy: Justice Barroso

Justice Luis Roberto Barroso, President of the Federal Supreme Court of Brazil delivered a lecture on Constitutional Democracy and Democratic Recession, Mission and Role of Supreme Courts on Tuesday at the National Law School of India University (NLSIU) in the city

“Populism makes two basic mistakes of being anti-institutional and being anti-pluralistic...Populism can be a right-wing populism or far-right populism. In current days, far-right populism has been posing greater risks to democracy,” said Justice Luis Roberto Barroso, President of the Federal Supreme Court of Brazil delivered a lecture on Constitutional Democracy and Democratic Recession, Mission and Role of Supreme Courts on Tuesday at the National Law School of India University (NLSIU) in the city.

“Constitutional democracy was the winning ideology of the 20th century, having defeated, having prevailed over all the alternatives that presented themselves. The idea of constitutional democracy is like a coin with two sides. On one side, it means popular sovereignty, it means free and fair elections, and it means rule of the majority. And then there’s the constitutional side of it, that means limited power, rule of the law, and protection of fundamental rights. Most democracies in the world, including India, including and Brazil, have in their institutional arrangement a Supreme Court, whose role, among others, is to arbitrate tensions that sometimes exist between the two sides of the coin,” he said.

Elaborating on the role and missions of the Supreme Court he said: “The first one is to ensure the rule of the majority. The courts should not interfere with the legitimate political choices made by governments that were elected by the people. He also stated that the second mission of a Supreme Court is to preserve the rule of the law and to preserve democracy against the abuse of power by the majorities. And the third mission of a Supreme Court is to protect fundamental rights, including those of minorities.”

Justice Barroso explained that the Supreme Courts in countries like India, Brazil, the United States, Spain and Portugal, can do one thing, that is to strike down legislation from legislature or acts from the executive. “And so there is a question, there is a discussion on the legitimacy of the courts for doing that since the legislature is elected and the executive branch is elected. And judges are not elected. What constitutional theory says about this is that courts, Supreme Courts, are legitimised by the Constitution. That’s our role and that’s where our legitimacy stems from. This role is referred to in constitutional theory as the counter-majoritarian role,” he said.

Published - October 29, 2024 08:48 pm IST