The social rights in Brazil and the 1934 and 1988 constitutions: the memory update

Abstract

This work aimed to update the memory of social rights in Brazil from the comparative analysis between the provisions of the Brazilian constitutions of 1934 and 1988. The motivation to choose the theme is related to the importance of remembering the historical path of social rights in order to avoid the oblivion of the social contexts in which these were achieved on the formal plan. In section 1, a brief introduction was made, indicating the choice of the analytical method in which the theme of memory would be addressed based on the theory of memory places by Nora (1993 [1984]) and historical memory by Sá (2007). In section 2, the notion of historical memory was presented and the historical path of social rights was briefly traced, demonstrating that this was entirely marked by important social and political struggles of the working classes and their allies. In section 3, based on the aforementioned theoretical bases, it was sustained that the Constitution is embodied as a memory place of social rights, once in the interpretive practice of its provisions these are updated and have their paths remembered. In section 4, a comparison was made between the legal-constitutional disciplines of social rights established in 1934 and in 1988, in which an attempt was made to rescue the discursive memory of the interpretation of the rules that established these rights. Finally, the conclusion was presented, in the sense that the social rights provided for in the Constitution are immediately enforceable in view of paragraph 1 of article 5 of the 1988 Constitution, which granted immediate applicability to constitutional norms guaranteeing fundamental rights; that social rights continue to be denied to a large part of the population since 1934, when they were constitutionally guaranteed by the first and that the repeated denial of effectiveness of social rights is due, on the one hand, to government policies, more concerned with fiscal efficiency than with the basic needs and dignity of socially and economically vulnerable people, and on the other hand, to the greed of the private sector that captures social rights turning them into merchandise, especially the right to education, health and safety.