Anatomy of Brazil's Institutional Collapse: Contradictions between the Executive's Autocratic Conspiracy and the Judicial State of Exception

This paper examines the crisis of legality and institutional integrity that took hold in Brazil beginning with the 2022 electoral cycle. The study breaks down the two driving forces of the collapse: on one side, the political-military maneuvering of the Jair Bolsonaro government aimed at retaining power through the use of emergency instruments and clandestine plans; on the other, the consolidation of a Rule by Law regime led by the Supreme Federal Court, under the rapporteurship of Justice Alexandre de Moraes, in which fundamental constitutional guarantees, the natural-judge principle and the accusatorial model were repeatedly sacrificed. The paper analyzes the criminal classification of preparatory acts as opposed to the execution of the offense, the sociological and logistical profile of the January 8 events, the inaction of the security apparatus in the face of intelligence warnings, the factual inconsistencies in the gathering of evidence, the refusal and contestation, by foreign sovereign courts, of extradition requests submitted by Brazil, and judicial interference in the electoral process, measured by comparing the decisions of the TSE in 2022 and in 2026. A survey of 37 proceedings involving Bolsonaro after his term in office shows that the 12 retained by the STF were, without exception, under Moraes's rapporteurship. The paper further examines the enforcement of the sentence, the single-justice suspension of the Sentencing Law (Lei da Dosimetria) and the main objections to the thesis. It concludes that the country experienced the superimposition of a perennial judicial exception upon a failed attempt at executive insurrection, and that this exception extended to electoral competition itself. English translation of the original Portuguese essay, available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.24147103.