SUSPENSION OF REGULATORY AGENCIES’ NORMS BY THE CONGRESS: EMPIRICAL RESEARCH ON THE PRACTICE OF THE ARTICLE 49, V, OF THE BRAZILIAN CONSTITUTION

Abstract

This paper aims to analyze the Congress’s control over federal regulatory agencies through the proposal of legislative decree bills (PDL) in the last twenty-two years (1997-2019). The paper analyzes the justification and frequency of the usage of PDLs as a strategy of the Legislative Power to intervene in the normative production of these agencies. It explores, additionally, the factors that influence the development of such oversight, as well as possible agencies’ reactions to the PDLs. The paper looks into 158 projects currently in progress or that have already been processed by the Chamber of Deputies since the first regulatory agency was created in 1996. The authors analyze qualitatively and quantitatively the conjunctural determinants of these bills and expect that this descriptive and exploratory study on the behavior of Congress in the control of the normative acts of the regulatory agencies will help strengthen a research agenda that remains underdeveloped in Brazil.

Keywords
Congressional oversight; Brazilian National Congress; regulatory agencies; Proposal of Legislative Decree; regulatory State