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This paper examines the Legislative’s role in defining public policies in Brazil before and after the 1988 Constitution. It shows that the main social rights were institutionalised during the dictatorships of Getúlio Vargas (1930–34, 1937–45) and the military (1964–85), periods during which Congress was either closed or worked only decoratively. Although strengthened by the 1988 Constitution, Congress continues to play a secondary role in relation to the president, a position that in recent years it has been forced to share with the Supreme Court. Finally, it indicates that Congress, thus emptied of power, has turned its energies to expand its own privileges, causing popular outrage. It concludes that it is precisely by taking the opposite direction, turning to society, expanding representation to include women, afro-descendants, natives and other social minorities, and making itself more permeable to popular participation and control, that Congress may qualify itself as the main institutional space of political decision-making in Brazil.
