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Caught in an authoritarian trap of its own making? Brazil’s Lava Jato anti-corruption investigation and the politics of prosecutorial overreach
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Meszaros, George (2020) Caught in an authoritarian trap of its own making? Brazil’s Lava Jato anti-corruption investigation and the politics of prosecutorial overreach. Journal of Law and Society, 47 (S1). S54-S73. doi:10.1111/jols.12245
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Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/jols.12245
Abstract
The negative and corrosive impacts of corruption in the fields of economics, politics, and law are widely discussed. Less understood are the potentially negative impacts of anti‐corruption struggles and strategies themselves. This article presents a case study of Brazil's ‘Car Wash’ (‘Lava Jato’) scandal from a legal and political perspective. Although the subsequent Operation Car Wash investigation was widely regarded as remarkably successful, supposedly buttressing the rule of law through high‐profile prosecutions of leading politicians and businesspersons, the article argues that legal due process, wider constitutional law, and the political process were undermined. While the use of media leaks to strengthen the investigation proved tactically successful, when coupled with new legal instruments it undermined the presumption of innocence and contributed to a climate in which political and legal debates themselves became increasingly subordinated to simplistic polarizing anti‐corruption discourses, thereby undermining an already fragile political and institutional environment.
| Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||||
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| Subjects: | K Law [Moys] > KS Latin America | ||||||||
| Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Law | ||||||||
| Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Money laundering -- Brazil, Political corruption -- Brazil, Leaks (Disclosure of information) --Brazil, Corruption investigation -- Brazil, Trials (Political crimes and offenses) -- Brazil | ||||||||
| Journal or Publication Title: | Journal of Law and Society | ||||||||
| Publisher: | Wiley-Blackwell Publishing Ltd. | ||||||||
| ISSN: | 0263-323X | ||||||||
| Official Date: | October 2020 | ||||||||
| Dates: |
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| Volume: | 47 | ||||||||
| Number: | S1 | ||||||||
| Page Range: | S54-S73 | ||||||||
| DOI: | 10.1111/jols.12245 | ||||||||
| Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||||
| Publication Status: | Published | ||||||||
| Access rights to Published version: | Open Access | ||||||||
| Copyright Holders: | © 2020 The Authors. Journal of Law and Society published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Cardiff University (CU). | ||||||||
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