THE BRAZILIAN MODEL OF FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND HATE SPEECH: CRITICAL NOTES ON THE JURISPRUDENCE OF THE FEDERAL SUPREME COURT
Keywords:
Freedom of Expression, Hate Speech, Judicial Activism, Democracy, SupremocracyAbstract
This article seeks to demonstrate the Brazilian model of freedom of expression and its delimitation by the Constitutional Court, addressing the following question: Has the Supreme Federal Court excessively violated and restricted freedom of expression in Brazil? Thus, the objective is to present the interconnection, on the one hand, between freedom of expression, democracy, and constitutionalism, and, on the other, between totalitarianism (political, ideological, and legal), censorship, and state control of speech. To this end, the proposed methodology consists of bibliographical and descriptive research, focusing especially on the judgments of the Supreme Federal Court. The results indicate that the Supreme Federal Court has abusively and excessively restricted the scope of protection of freedom of expression, issuing contradictory decisions depending on who says something rather than what is said. The conclusion is that the Brazilian Constitutional Court has adopted an activist, antidemocratic, and unconstitutional stance in decisions on freedom of expression, primarily due to its political and ideological interests.
