Comment Re:Why, what, where, who, when (Score 1) 387
"When Portugal colonized Brazil, for quite sometime the ruling elite was made of pretty much a bunch of aristocratic good-for-nothing lawyers/slackers that graduated from Coimbra University, in Portugal. The basic characteristic of such people were a basic lack of common sense as well as a despise for work. Instead of working, they made laws. And more laws."
Brazil has been independent since 1822. It got rid of the Portuguese entirely from 1889! It is true that, from my knowledge, it inherited, by choice and in the start of ots independence, a lot of the Portuguese royal decrees and law. But, Brazil has already been throught seven, I repeat, seven constitutions since, the last one approved in 1988. Since then it has already been amended 52 times. You still believe it is the fault of the Portuguese? Perhaps it is time to wake up, smell the coffee and start assuming brazil's own responsability on the legal "explosion" it is facing.
"Portugal is notorious for having discovered America and then having ended up owing a huge amount of money to the Brits, as foreign debt, losing all the gold they had amassed, right?"
You do know that we did have an earthquake in Portugal in 1775 that wiped out most of our capital city of Lisbon, do you?
"Until recently, it was possible to maneuver in legal waters to a point that even trivial matters went to the Supreme Court. By trivial, I mean a dog biting the neighbour."
Comparing the Brazilian with the Portuguese constitutions (latest since 1976), at first, they look identicaly oriented. Both have a comparable number of articles. But when you start really looking, you see that the Brazilian constitution is an insane display of maximalist constitutionalism. Even tough the Portuguese constitution faces critics that it is too vague and long, the Brazilian is in an intire diferent ball game. Everything (or close) is inside the Brasilian constituition! Its sheer size bears resemblance with the size of the Portuguese whole code of civil law! It comes at no surprese that everything and its oposite gets to be interpreted out of such a constitution, sometimes depending on how much a lawyer you present or even on the slight amendments that you can politicaly get through.
But blaming it on the Portuguese... Please!
Brazil has been independent since 1822. It got rid of the Portuguese entirely from 1889! It is true that, from my knowledge, it inherited, by choice and in the start of ots independence, a lot of the Portuguese royal decrees and law. But, Brazil has already been throught seven, I repeat, seven constitutions since, the last one approved in 1988. Since then it has already been amended 52 times. You still believe it is the fault of the Portuguese? Perhaps it is time to wake up, smell the coffee and start assuming brazil's own responsability on the legal "explosion" it is facing.
"Portugal is notorious for having discovered America and then having ended up owing a huge amount of money to the Brits, as foreign debt, losing all the gold they had amassed, right?"
You do know that we did have an earthquake in Portugal in 1775 that wiped out most of our capital city of Lisbon, do you?
"Until recently, it was possible to maneuver in legal waters to a point that even trivial matters went to the Supreme Court. By trivial, I mean a dog biting the neighbour."
Comparing the Brazilian with the Portuguese constitutions (latest since 1976), at first, they look identicaly oriented. Both have a comparable number of articles. But when you start really looking, you see that the Brazilian constitution is an insane display of maximalist constitutionalism. Even tough the Portuguese constitution faces critics that it is too vague and long, the Brazilian is in an intire diferent ball game. Everything (or close) is inside the Brasilian constituition! Its sheer size bears resemblance with the size of the Portuguese whole code of civil law! It comes at no surprese that everything and its oposite gets to be interpreted out of such a constitution, sometimes depending on how much a lawyer you present or even on the slight amendments that you can politicaly get through.
But blaming it on the Portuguese... Please!
