The Administrative Legal Security in the Jurisprudence of the Supreme Court: An Analysis of the Normative Grounds and Legal Arguments in the Judgement of Injunctions 24,781 and 25,116

Abstract

This article aims to examine the mandamus 25.116 and 24.781, focusing on the principle of legal certainty. In these, the Brazilian Supreme Court –which until now had considered expendable the participation of beneficiaries in cases about of initial grant of retirement, military retirement and pension acts – invoked the principle of legal certainty to invalidate decisions of the Brazilian Court of Accounts (TCU) with the understanding that the inertia of the TCU for more than 5 years to appreciate these concessions grants the beneficiaries the right to have the opportunity to be heard and to participate in the process of their benefits judgment. To analyze these precedents, this work initially sets the meaning in which legal certainty will be used and explains its difference, as a legal principle, from the other kinds or types of law standards. After that it clarifies the distinction and relationship between legal certainty (objective meaning) and the principle of protection of confidence (subjective dimension of legal certainty) and investigates their contents. Then it contextualizes the questions involved in that mandamus and identifies the legal arguments and normative foundations used. Finally the article confronts them with the doctrinal opinions and other information collected in this study to check their compatibility. The study concludes that although the arrangement they signed represent an evolution in comparison with the previous case law, it don’t implement the principle of legal certainty how it wants to do.