Brazilian legal culture and the whip: Miguel Reale and the history as a source of rights

Abstract

In this article, it is analyzed the opposition of Miguel Reale to the instauration of Constitutional Conventions during Brazilian military dictatorship as a reiteration of the thesis of the inadaptation of liberal and democratic ideas to the Brazilian reality. This thesis corresponds to a dualistic reading of the history, which was the basis for the authoritarian elements in Brazilian legal culture. This legal culture employs history not as a source for new rights, but as a justification for political continuity.