An Introduction to Brazilian Legal Culture

Abstract

This report of inquiry comprises an analysis of the consolidation trajectory of the legal teaching in Brazil. An analysis is made of the consequences for the Brazilian legal culture by the adoption of a teaching mainly directed to satisfy political interests of an Imperial State rather than attaining a solidification of an intellectual legal culture. This caused a distortion of the institutional purposes of the law schools in Brazil, giving rise to damaging consequences for the formation of Brazilian legal culture (as dogmatic, non-critical, non reflexive and non politicized), namely: the crystallizing of a codified, dogmatic and formalized teaching, instead of teaching the student how to structure reasoning in a critical, reflexive and problem formulating manner; the stifling of flourishing techniques and methods of teaching and learning; the absence of methodological concerns; the self-teaching; the lack of a discipline which might have interpretation techniques or legal hermeneutics as its object of study; the focusing on the law as a static system, instead of conceiving it as a regulating process of needs in constant social, political and economical change; the gap between the teaching put forth in classrooms and the reality of Brazilian life, which presents itself as teaching put forth in classrooms and the reality of Brazilian life, which presents itself as contradictory and conflicting by excellence; the isolation of the legal science vis-à-vis other subjects of human sciences; the routinely confusion between professional practice and academic research.

Keywords: Brazilian Legal Culture, dogmatic, non-critical, non reflexive and non politicized