BICAMERALISMO

Author : José Luiz Quadros de Magalhães
State General Theory Professor at the Law School of the Minas Gerais Federal University (UFMG)
Master and Phd in Constitutional Law
Member of the Brazilian Economic Law Fundation President of the Human Rights State Counsel

Co-author : Cláudia Mª Toledo da Silveira
Law graduation student at the Law School of the Minas Gerais Federal University (UFMG)
Law General Theory monitor

The adoption of a parliament organization into one or two legislative houses (the upper and the lower ones) surpasses the discussion about the federal form of the State and can present relevant political aspects to the stability and conservation of the juridical ordination.
In Brazil, the Constitution of 1988 keeps the bicameralism, establishing a House of Deputies as the representation of the federate states and the Senade also has the function of a reviser and moderating legislative house, with the objective of obstructing probable abrupt or sudden changes the might occur through a radical alteration in the composition of the House of Deputies, which suffers a renovation of all its members every four years.
The House of Deputies must have a variable number of deputies per each state, correspondent to a proportion of its electors' number, due to the fact that it represents the citizens and once the system of circunscription has been adopted.
However, the minimum number of 08 (eight) and the maximum of 70 (seventy) deputies per state doesn't allow the existence of the proportionality demanded by the proper constitutional principle, because of the enormous disparity there is between the most and the least populous states.
The Senade, since represents the federation, establishes equal representation power among the states. Each one has three representatives, including, since 1988, the representation of the Federal District. In fact, the conservative aspect of the Senade is much more remarkable than its nature of Legislative House, which has the responsability of keeping the federal balance.
This stand is clearly manifasted at three moments: the mandate of its members; the member's renovation form; and its legislative competence. The senators' mandate lasts 08 (eight) years, exactly the double of the deputies one. Besides, there isn't the possibility to renovate its members all at once, seeing that the election occurs every four years. renovating one third and two thirds of its members, alternately.
The settlement of this mechanism implies the existence of a legislative house that will be able to represent, at determined political moments, a barrier to the most radical transformations, derived from a totally renovated Chamber of Deputies.
The limitative character of the Senade legislative process is aggravated by the normative elaboration constitutionally established, which determines that every subject must be voted, normally, by two legislative houses separately and, in some cases - as it happens to the appreciation of the presidential veto -, by the National Congress, in unicameral section.
The adoption of this process implies the subjects deriving from the House of Deputies must be debated and voted by the Senade. The approved ones are filed and can still suffer amendments that might warf its initial contents.
These verifications in the constitutional text lead us to conclude that the unicameralism offers a much more adequate dynamics to a country under transformation. Nevertheless, the unicameralism adoption can represent serious damages to less populated (generally the poorest ones) states, especially in the Brasilian Federal State, where populational, social and economical disparities are so grave.
The overcome of the problem can occur in a simple way, starting by the modification of the three factors, specified above as the responsable for the Senade conservative character.
The mandate reduction to four years and the renovation of all its members together with the House of Deputies can eliminate this conservative character without threatening the federal balance in the parliament.
Another advance can be achieved by correcting the legislative process and establishing diverse competences to the two legislative houses. It's possible to reasonably eliminate the Senade conservative character by determining specific legislative competences to it, that involve the federate members' interests, such as the tributary subject, even keeping the actual renovation formula of the Senade members and the mandate duration.
All this discussion must be deepened in order to allow the construction of a agile model of the State structure, that can then be ready to answer to the populaton comand fast.
There is one discussion left: we have been defending, in a lot of previous works, the Municipal power, studing and presenting the options to a desirable power descentralization, which can happen through a Municipal Districts federation; by miniaturing the federate states; or through the simple modification of the competence distribution and of the actual still centralized mechanism.
We eliminate the various federate states representation problems, that would be created if the two first formulas were adopted, by understanding that the modification of the competence partition is the most viable instrument at a first moment, in face of our political, social and economical reality.
However, the overcome of the problems created by the two first options, related to the representation of our federate members in Senade, can be surpassed with municipal and regional representation formulas and also with the establishment of constitutional safeguard of the federate members.
Although the Federal Constitution has crated a new federation, where expressaly the Municipal Districts integrate it, there wasn't any concern with the establisment of a municipal representation in Senade, inasmuch as the municipal interests can be more easily equationed in the federate state ambit. The non representation of the Municipal Districts in the Federal Senade can't justify its non acceptance as federate members, first for being a constitutionally expressed determination and second, due to the fact their interests before the Union are amplely protected through the senators and representatives of the states that the Municipal Districts integrate. There are municipal organization mechanisms in the states ambit, provided that its competences and resources are constitutionally assured, what happens to our actual text, eventhough in a shy and still excessively centralized form.