Politics of Time in the Brazilian Supreme Court

ADPF 153, Amnesty Law and performative uses of History

Abstract

This article approaches the relationship between history and justice using as a starting point the recent debate about the 1979 Amnesty Law at the Brazilian Supreme Court – at the occasion of judgment of the Arguição de Preceito Fundamental 153 in 2010. Considering the context of transitional justice and the changes in the historical discipline in the second half of the 20th century, particularly the discussions about time in history, the paper analyzes how the supreme justices manage the ‘politics of time’ in their votes. By observing the various temporal constructions that arise from the use of historical arguments, the article concludes that the supreme justices place the amnesty in the past and in the present, at the same time, to justify the impossibility of reinterpreting the law. The paper reflects upon the challenges of ‘making history’ in contexts where historical arguments and forms of historicization are operated by other political actors.