The Judge of Shadows

The method

Three rules, and no exceptions

Institutional criticism in Brazil has forfeited its credibility through a surplus of adjectives and a shortage of documents. This book was written in the opposite direction, and the price of that was forgoing any ammunition that will not hold.

1. I

   Nothing enters without a source

   A date, a docket number, and a public document. Whatever fails that filter stays out, however convinced the author may be.

2. II

   Record and analysis remain separate

   The episodes are recounted without adjectives. The interpretation is confined to five interleaved essays, identified as the author's thesis and not as fact.

3. III

   Error is corrected in public

   In the course of the research, three episodes already drafted were struck: they attributed to a single individual decisions that had been made by a collegiate panel. Five others were rewritten. The note recording this appears in the book itself, not in a discreet erratum.

Anatomy of a record

How each of the 120 episodes is built

All of them follow the same record sheet. That is what makes the entire set auditable by any reader, with or without legal training.

What you will find

The structure of the book

• PrefA first-person prefaceWhy a practicing attorney decided to write this
• 01What the separation of powers isWritten for readers outside the field. Without it, the rest makes no sense
• 02One hundred twenty episodes, in chronological orderFrom 2019 to 2026, with date, docket number, and source
• 03Five interleaved essaysThe author's thesis, kept apart from the record and identified as such
• 04Comparative chapterHow other democracies address the same questions
• 05Diagnostic chapterThe pattern the episodes reveal when taken together
• 06Seven mechanisms of accountabilityIncluding two original legal proposals