Abstract

SANT'ANA PEDRA, Adriano. The ineligibility of the illiterate in Brazil: a more democratic reading. Estudios constitucionales [online]. 2011, vol.9, n.1, pp. 227-244. ISSN 0718-5200.  doi: 10.4067/S0718-52002011000100008.

The Brazilian Constitution establishes that illiterates are ineligible. Despite of the disapproval of this restriction, in some cases it is difficult to know whether a person is ineligible or not, because the term "illiterate" assumes vague outlines. This work aims to investigate how it has been concretized the ineligibility of the illiterate in Brazil. The hypothesis we have is that the concept of illiterate can vary according to the constituency and also in accordance with the elective office under discussion. Then, this study is based on the concretion theory, which says that the norm results from a process of concretion, where, in addition to the legal precept, the factual circumstances relating to case also works. This allows us to interpret the ineligibility of the illiterate according to the context.

Keywords : illiterate; concretion constitutional; fundamental rights; political rights; ineligibility.