RECURSOS NOS TRIBUNAIS SUPERIORES

O IMPACTO DO FILTRO DE RELEVÂNCIA NA ADMISSIBILIDADE DO RECURSO ESPECIAL

Abstract

After a decade of proceeding, the final text of the Constitutional Amendment Proposal (PEC) 39/2021, known as the “Relevance PEC”, was approved in two rounds of voting in the Chamber of Deputies. The PEC aimed to introduce a new requirement for appeal admissibility, aimed at optimizing the work of the Superior Court of Justice (STJ), similar to the requirements of “general repercussion” already existing and implemented in extraordinary appeals, as well as “transcendence” in magazine appeals. As a result, on July 15, 2022, Constitutional Amendment (EC) 125 was enacted, amending art. 105 of the Constitution to establish, also in special appeals, the need to comply with the requirement of relevance of questions of federal law in infra-constitutional matters. The proposal is thus to analyze the implementation of the relevance filter as a requirement for admissibility of the REsp from the perspective that the Superior Court of Justice now seeks to act as a “Court of precedents”, and no longer as “another instance” of the Judiciary. In short, a factual picture was drawn of the origin of this mechanism, outlining its basic implications, the limits to its application, and the history of its application in the Superior Court of Justice, so that, in the end, the mechanisms by which the relevance filter will enter — in a practical way — the Brazilian legal system are delimited.