Author:

ANDRESSA MIQUELINI LACK

Abstract:

Historically lobbying has always been fraught with controversy, given its proximity to political agents and therefore to power. However, this is an important activity because it represents, above all, the exercise of participation in political decisions in a legitimate way, linking citizens and stimulating democracy in a perfectly permissible political exercise in our system. Lobbying can also be seen as an alternative to achieving results in the face of difficulties in dialogue with the government, especially when there are no channels institutionally capable of offering the necessary participation in the public sphere to channel demands. However, the avenues of advocacy are not exempt from abuse and non-republican practices, often channeled through instruments of political and economic power, which ignore social harms in the name of private advantage. Worldwide, even in countries where the activity is already standardized, there is distrust in lobbying. In Brazil, the situation is becoming even more acute in view of not only the absence of regulation, but also the recent wave of punishment of private agents involved in corruption scandals, whose origin is often attributed to the lobby. And such a lack of understanding runs through all social segments, including the judiciary and prosecutors. In this paper, it is argued that lobbying and illicit are not confused. Thus, this dissertation sought to defend two arguments: (i) that the Brazilian legal and normative order, in its present form, presents the necessary conditions to distinguish the crimes of influence peddling and active corruption from lobbying, but insufficient to ensure the realization of good practices in this sector; and (ii) the incorporation of lobbying regulations into the legal system may provide the elements of legal and regulatory complementation that will enable the realization of best practices for the advocacy sector more effectively. To this end, an analysis was made of the constitutional beacons for lobbying, Brazilian criminal law, norms and international experiences, with emphasis on the recommendations made by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the most advanced stage of discussions held in the Brazil. The work noted the strong resistance and the lack of building a deliberative space that incorporates and confronts arguments to provide for the implementation of specific lobbying legislation.