Abstract
Using the example of Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment by the Federal Senate on 31 August 2016, this paper discusses the applicability of the U.S. notion of “procedural due process of law” to the presidential impeachment process under Brazilian constitutional law, taking a critical approach based on the Inter-American system of human rights protection and a number of comparisons with the European human rights model. The author argues that, although the Senate alone is competent to try the President for crimes of malversation according to Article 52 (1) of the Brazilian Constitution, certain guarantees of due process are necessary in such impeachment proceedings in order to ensure compliance with the fundamental human right to a fair trial established by the case law of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. Brazilian law should therefore be amended by providing for Supreme Court review of the legal and factual issues of the impeachment in exceptional cases in which the Senate fails to provide such guarantees.
Keywords:
impeachment; due process of law; American Convention on Human Rights; Dilma Rousseff; deference