Brazil · Supreme Court · Real data · Complete universe

Decoding Brazil's
constitutional risk.

Brazil's Supreme Court rules on the merits in only 21% of cases. Before you invest, litigate, or regulate in Brazil — you need to understand how its highest court actually behaves.

Request a briefing Explore the data →
169k
STF decisions
79%
No merits ruling
$26bn
Annual cost of non-decisions
4×
Most expensive among major economies
Why this matters

Brazil's legal uncertainty is a quantifiable risk.

With over $1 trillion in GDP and one of the world's most litigious societies, Brazil's judicial behavior directly affects investment risk, regulatory compliance, and market stability.

01 — Investment risk
Tax and regulatory disputes linger for decades
Brazil's courts process 39.4 million new cases per year. Tax litigation alone exceeds R$5 trillion in contested liabilities. Without understanding precedent stability, fiscal risk cannot be properly provisioned.
02 — Regulatory exposure
Constitutional rulings reshape entire sectors overnight
ADI, ADC, and ADPF actions can invalidate federal and state legislation with immediate erga omnes effect. JudX tracks 8,562 concentrated control cases — the regulatory risk map no one else provides.
03 — Labor contingency
The STF defines employment relationships unilaterally
10,862 labor Reclamações in our corpus — 57% of all STF complaints — reflect systematic conflict between the court's rulings and labor tribunals. Understanding this circuit is essential for workforce planning.
04 — Precedent intelligence
Knowing the rapporteur is half the battle
Success rates vary sevenfold by party type — and systematically by rapporteur. JudX maps the institutional DNA of each justice: decision patterns, environment preferences, and dissent frequency.
The data

What the numbers reveal.

First complete empirical analysis of Brazil's Supreme Court behavior. Full universe — no sampling, no selection bias.

79%
Decisions without merits ruling
Dismissed appeals, rejected motions, denied standing. The underlying dispute returns unresolved — recycled through the system in a new form.
Source: JudX · Corte Aberta STF · 169,851 decisions
1.3%
Most expensive judiciary among major economies — 4× the global average
R$146.5 billion in 2024. The global average is 0.3% of GDP. Brazil spends more than four times that. Only El Salvador — a country smaller than the Brazilian state of Sergipe — spends proportionally more.
Source: CNJ · Justiça em Números 2025 · Tesouro Nacional
1.9%
Success rate — individuals vs. state
Individual citizens win on the merits 1.9% of the time. Public entities win 13.1% — seven times more. The asymmetry is structural, not statistical noise.
Source: JudX · polo ativo × resultado analysis
~$26bn
Annual cost of non-decisions (USD)
If 79% of decisions produce no merits ruling and the judiciary costs R$146.5bn/year, approximately R$115bn annually funds the apparatus of non-resolution — paid by taxpayers.
Source: JudX calculation · CNJ + Corte Aberta STF
8.5k
Concentrated control actions mapped
ADI, ADC, ADPF, ADO — complete dataset with challenged legislation, injunction status, and final outcome. The regulatory risk register Brazil never built.
Source: JudX · Corte Aberta STF · 473e dataset
1,451
General Repercussion themes tracked
Every binding constitutional thesis — with fixation status, national suspension orders, and affected processes. The map of where Brazilian law is settled and where it isn't.
Source: JudX · Corte Aberta STF · 0f4b dataset
Fiscal risk constitutionalism

The system doesn't fail. It redistributes.

When a court produces non-decisions at scale, it is deciding something: transferring the burden of uncertainty onto those least able to carry it. We call this fiscal risk constitutionalism.

State entities 13.1%
Federal government, states, municipalities, agencies
Corporations 7.7%
Companies, associations, federations
Individuals 1.9%
Citizens — 7× lower success rate than state entities
SOURCE: JUDX · 1,630 INCIDENTS ANALYZED · EXCLUDING RECLAMAÇÕES
Use cases

Who uses JudX — and how.

From M&A due diligence to regulatory strategy, JudX turns Brazil's judicial complexity into structured intelligence.

Investment funds
Judicial risk in portfolio companies
Map outstanding litigation exposure across STF and STJ. Identify themes with high recirculation risk — disputes the court has not genuinely resolved and is unlikely to resolve soon.
Multinationals
Regulatory and labor contingency
Monitor concentrated control actions affecting your sector. Track General Repercussion themes that govern your tax and labor obligations. Know before the ruling, not after.
Law firms
Rapporteur intelligence
Success rates by rapporteur, organ, and case type — with institutional DNA profiles. Understand not just what the court decides, but who decides and under what conditions.
Development banks
Sovereign and sub-sovereign risk
Quantify judicial uncertainty as a component of country risk. The STF's constitutional cartography — Article by Article — reveals where Brazilian law is stable and where it remains contested.
Regulators & IGOs
Rule of law assessment
Empirical data on judicial behavior: virtual vs. in-person decision rates, pseudo-collegiality indicators, precedent stability scores. The institutional metrics no official report provides.
Academic & policy
Constitutional adjudication research
Complete universe corpus — not samples. 169,851 decisions with full taxonomy, environment classification, and anchoring to constitutional articles via ICONS cartography.
"

A system that decides not to decide is still deciding — it is redistributing the burden of uncertainty onto those least able to carry it.

Damares Medina · JudX · Decoding Justice, 2026

Decode Brazil's
constitutional risk.

Request a briefing. We will walk you through the data most relevant to your exposure in Brazil — no commitment required.

Response within 24 hours · No spam · Data protected