The abstract control of constitutionality of municipal laws

Abstract

The article seeks to analyze the abstract constitutional control of municipal laws and its mechanisms, through the analysis of the Brazilian Constitution, legal doctrine and the jurisprudence of the Supremo Tribunal Federal. In order to do so, we stem from the analysis of the role of the municipality in Brazilian federalism and the Brazilian Constitution. From there, the article studies possible conflicts of constitutionality regarding municipal laws and normative acts in conflict with the Brazilian Constitution, the State Constitution and the municipal charter. Based on the results of this analysis, we verified a deficit in the Brazilian legal system regarding the constitutional control of municipal laws in the federal and municipal spheres. As a way of solving this deficit, which offends the federalist principle of the Constitution of 1988 as well as allowing for a great number of municipal laws to not be subject to any form of constitutional control that is not regarding its State Constitution, this article proposes the increase of mechanisms of constitutional control of municipal laws, justifying the proposed measures by its significant contribution to the symmetry of the federalism of the Federative Republic of Brazil.