A atuação das cortes superiores na formação da jurisprudência e seu reflexo na segurança jurídica

Abstract

This article analyzes the role of the higher courts in the formation of Brazilian case law and its impacts on legal certainty. Starting from the observation that the Brazilian legal system, traditionally linked to written law, has begun to attribute increasing importance to judicial precedents—especially after the Federal Constitution of 1988 and the Code of Civil Procedure of 2015—it examines the role played by the Supreme Federal Court and the Superior Court of Justice in standardizing the interpretation of constitutional and non-constitutional law. The methodology employed consists of bibliographic research on doctrinal works related to the topic, complemented by the analysis of relevant laws and scholarly articles.

The study highlights the importance of legal hermeneutics in this context, considering the strong principled character of the 1988 Constitution and the need to balance interpretative flexibility with normative binding force. Finally, it seeks to demonstrate that the effectiveness of the system of precedents and the preservation of legal certainty depend on the institucional commitment of the higher courts to criteria of stability, coherence, and integrity of the law, in line with the foundations of the Democratic Rule of Law.

Keywords: superior courts, jurisprudence, legal certainty, judicial precedents