Law and politics: the Ministério Público and the defense of collective rights

The article analyzes the recent process of institutional reconstruction of the Brazilian Ministério Público (MP). The first part deals with the main legal texts which, in the last two decades, have redefined the activities of the MP. Three main elements are considered: the regulation of disperse and collective rights, public civil action and the new legal and constitutional attributions of the MP. The author explains how the 1988 Constitution, in consolidating previous isolated norms, produced an institutional arrangement that has brought about an extensive judicialization of collective conflicts and a politicization of the judicial institutions, especially the MP. The second part, based on a survey, approaches the reconstruction of the institutional role of the MP, seen through the eyes of its own members. Of equal or even greater importance than the new institutional picture is the doctrinal and ideological renewal that has taken place among procuradores e promotores in recent years. Observation of their discourse provides us with an understanding of the identity that this doctrinal and ideological renewal seeks to stamp on the institution. In its final part, the article points out the limits and contradictions in this process of institutional reconstruction.